In the Service
by Alpha Flyer
Summary: "You lie and you kill in the service of liars and killers." Some Government jobs are more complicated than others.
1. New York I

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Halfway through the Avengers movie, Loki utters one of my very favourite lines - one that speaks to the at best ambiguous, at worst sinister political reality we occasionally see peeking out from behind the aliens, the monsters, and the men in flying suits. Here he is, summing up for Natasha Romanoff's 'benefit' just what she does for a living:

"_You lie and you kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors. But they are a part of you, and they will never go away!_"

Well, yes. Some Government jobs are definitely more complicated than others. Here's my take on how the guy who 'sees better from a distance' might feel about his - and about taking orders more generally.

Could serve as a prequel to "Going to Ground."

* * *

**In the Service:**

**Three Times Hawkeye Questions His Orders (And One Time He Doesn't)**

**By Alpha Flyer**

* * *

I

_New York I_

The first time Clint gets pissed off about an assignment comes about six weeks after he'd originally been given it. Okay, he'd been wondering about it almost right away, but that had been for different reasons. Now, he's just scratching his head and is wondering what S.H.I.E.L.D.'s political masters use instead of common sense, and whether he's in the right job.

The job in question had been Clint's first, just after he started with S.H.I.E.L.D. The first month had been soaked up by indoctrination, briefings, training and tests, test, tests - physical, psych, skills, you name it. Since they didn't throw him out he can only assume that he made up for shortcomings in categories like "plays well with others" and "interpersonal relations" with what he gained for marksmanship and handling anything that resembles a projectile. They made him come back several times for more tests on strategy and tactics, although he doesn't know whether that's good or bad since he never had any formal training in the stuff.

But here he is, having been declared fit for his first real mission. The assignment is so bloody easy, it's almost an insult. To start with, he could have practically walked there from his place on Lex, the one he'd bought with his first official paycheck (topped up with his private stash 'coz you know, government salaries) when it became clear that he could stomach dorm-living on the helicarrier only intermittently.

Walking to a job should beat sixteen hours in an airplane going to some hellhole whose name you can't spell any day, but of course that's not how it's done at S.H.I.E.L.D. The thing starts with a 6 am briefing at S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters, to be followed by Official Transport to the hotel where Clint and Agent Evans - middle name, "Make Sure The Newbie Doesn't Fuck Up" - are to meet their VIP target … no, _charge_.

"What's so special about this guy that he gets babysat by S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Clint asks at the briefing. It's a reasonable question, really, one that deserves an answer if you're expected to be ready to kill just so someone else can live another day. Clint's conscience isn't exactly the cleanest thing going but when he turned That Page, he decided that if he fires off one of his arrows, at a minimum he'd like to know why.

"There have been several attempts on President Mbuto's life in the last six months," Hill informs him in that supercilious tone she has, the one that makes her so popular with the support staff. Like she's talking to a moron, which Clint is pretty sure he isn't, even if he doesn't have a Ph.D. and is still new to this agent business. "His people have asked the Government for extra protection while he is here to speak to the General Assembly."

Clint glares at her intently. _Of course_ the guy was under threat. _Duh. _Not what he asked.

"Yeah, I get that. But why us? Isn't that what the FBI's for? Or Kevin Costner?"

Hill gives him a long, hard look that says quite clearly, _we didn't hire you to ask questions, carnie, and especially not for sarcastic editorial remarks. _What she says is, "The Council requested it."

Ah. _Orders are from the top so shut the fuck up_. Message received, loud and clear. Clint briefly mulls over how this could be considered as an explanation on any level, but fact is, he _is_ new and maybe that's what it's like in a bureaucracy, maybe he'll get used to it. So he decides, in fact, to shut the fuck up and go with the flow. For now, anyway. Clint doesn't tend to forget a lot of things; unanswered questions, never.

So, a couple of hours later and there he is, in the lobby of the Intercontinental, taking receipt of his assignment. The guy he's supposed to be guarding is wearing some sort of tribal garb, except it's made from the kind of exclusive-looking silk that you go to Liberty's in London for, and a bunch of gold chains so tacky they shouldn't be real, but are.

President Norbert Mbuto (and just where _did_ the Norbert thing come from?) is shriveled and shrunken to the point of desiccation and looks like a breeze could topple him, but his eyes … it's not that they're rheumy and old, they are. But more than that, they're cold and dead, like there's nothing behind them except a bone-chilling wind that will suck the life out of anything and anyone their gaze touches. The man's underlings bow and scrape around him and the whole thing is like a scene out of a shitty movie. Clint can sure see how Mbuto's people need a professional to look out for threats, since their eyes seem to be perpetually glued to the floor for fear they might catch their boss' attention.

Clint takes up his position a few feet behind the guy as they walk to the car and puts his eyes into scan mode, sweeping first the hotel lobby and then the street with a gaze that misses nothing. Or it wouldn't, if there was anything there to see. The Intercontinental is playing host to at least three other heads of state, all in town for the "High Level Segment" of the UN General Assembly, and the cops have sealed off the whole block with metal gates. Most exciting thing Clint picks up is a couple of bewildered pedestrians, trying to look nonchalant in the face of all those guys in suits and shades talking into their sleeves.

Clint is stuck in a suit too, standard S.H.I.E.L.D. issue. Only guy he's ever seen who rocks those things is that guy Coulson; as for himself, he finds it way too tight on his arms and shoulders and he's unexpectedly glad he won't need his bow today. The cheap shit it's made of would rip at the first draw. He's already decided to go arms-free when he's in the field, where Hill can't complain. Hell, if _she_ gets to wear leathers when the mood takes her, he should too.

He gets to ride in the car with the Man Himself, which turns out to be a mixed blessing. But at least he sits in the front and doesn't have to look at the guy while he spits guttural invective at the Foreign Minister, who's stuck in the seat beside him and tries to say something his boss obviously doesn't want to hear. Evans gets to ride with the Number Two, a general with so many medals pinned to his chest that he has a hard time walking straight. (Belatedly it occurs to Clint to wonder why he gets to watch the top guy; presumably one more of Fury's tests.)

Eventually, and an interminable trip through Manhattan later they finally get into the UN building (POTUS is speaking first off, and the streets are a fucking parking lot, thanks to _his _motorcade). Clint is less than impressed with the security arrangements at the entrance, which seem to be mostly flash. The security dudes seem to have been picked to demonstrate UN member state diversity rather than for their competence; he could take each and every one of them out with a Kleenex before any of the diplomats could raise so much as a briefcase in self-defence.

But at least they seem to have the traffic regulation thing down – although the lobby is a zoo, his VIP gets in without slowing down. Bonus: as the personal protection officer for His Creepiness, Clint is allowed to walk around the metal detector. He takes a mental note: Seems like if you're a PPO and your job is to bring in a gun, you're the one guy they don't actually check out. He probably could have brought his bow.

An excruciating, speech-filled two hours later it's Mbuto's turn. Clint covers his back as he walks up to the front, then turns crisply and starts scanning the audience from his place beside the nicely exposed podium. Even though there's supposed to be all heads of state here, many of them left after POTUS and the lady from the European Union finished speaking, maybe to go to the can or for bilateral meetings, who knows. They filter back in with their hangers-on when their speaking slot comes up. Apparently Mbuto ranks only the C-team for many delegations; Canada and Australia are down to what looks like fresh-faced interns. Maybe they're making a point?

Based on what he saw at the entrance, Clint pays particular attention to the PPOs in the room, them being the ones most likely to have guns and him being big on mathematical concepts, like probability. Sure enough, he spots this guy in a suit, tall black dude standing off to the side, halfway up the steps, beside a row occupied apparently by a bunch of African states besides Mbuto's. (Who knew there were _two_ Congos? Clint resolves quietly to do a bit more reading.)

Anyway, the guy is glaring at Mbuto intently and shakes his head almost compulsively as the Great Dictator starts a rant about _non-interference in the internal affairs _of his shit hole of a country, and how the Colonial West (huh? Been a few years …) should bugger out of how he's dealing with its people and natural resources - probably personally, Clint thinks, he doesn't sound like the kind of guy who'd share.

Halfway through the rant the guy on the steps clenches his jaw and reaches for his pocket. He pulls out an object that shines matte and metallic in the neon light of the assembly hall, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know what it is.

Time slows for the Hawk, as it always does in moments like this, with him moving at what's his normal speed.

Now presumably he should jump out in front of his client and take the hit, but he's not wearing Kevlar and he sure as fuck doesn't think Mbuto is worth the Kevin Costner approach. So instead he flies at him and knocks him aside, pulls his piece and, after a quick calculation of possible exit trajectories and ricochets, plants a bullet in the big guy's forehead. The gun that guy manages to fire goes off harmlessly into the ceiling. Well, almost harmlessly – a bit of neon fixture comes off and falls down somewhere around Vanuatu.

Chaos ensues, of course, but Clint doesn't stick around to watch it unfold. He grabs His Worshipfulness and half drags him off the stage, heading for the exit before anyone else has the time to think about running. The UN security guys are actually pretty quick to react and surprisingly helpful, and he manages to stash Mbuto in a small room and lock it down before comming S.H.I.E.L.D. for an update. The rest of Mbuto's people are nowhere in sight, but that's Evans' problem, not Clint's.

Debrief that evening is short and sweet. Mbuto has already left the country where "this heinous attack on his life was tolerated."

Apparently he left Clint a couple of diamonds and a thank you note, but the rules don't allow anyone to benefit personally from a government job, so Fury has already locked the baubles away for S.H.I.E.L.D.'s annual charity auction. Clint doesn't give a shit about the thank you note, especially when he learns that the guy he killed had family in the oil-rich part of Mbuto's fiefdom, who were driven out and slaughtered as they fled when his goons moved in. (Those tribes in Africa straddle borders; nothing is ever simple there.)

"Good job, agent," Fury says, and Hill gives him a long look that could mean anything but probably doesn't. Evans just stares at his fingernails, and is asked to stick around after Clint leaves.

He goes back to his little broom closet on Lex that night and has a very long shower, followed by Chinese takeout from the place downstairs and a couple beers on the water tower two roof tops over, listening to police sirens below.

…..

Now here's the actual point where Clint first wonders what the fuck he is doing at S.H.I.E.L.D. Six weeks later, Fury gives him a new assignment, his first one overseas. Solo mission, plausible deniability and all that.

He is to take out President Norbert Mbuto.

Clint doesn't have a problem about this as such. Killing people is basically what he signed up for, let's be honest, and Mbuto struck him as being a good example of the sort the planet would be better off without. But what bothers him is the … well, inconsistent approach, and he decides it's worth questioning Fury.

"So, the guy's an asshole. I get that. Was pretty obvious from the crap he spouted at the UN. So why did S.H.I.E.L.D. get asked to protect him in the first place? Never did get an answer to that."

He glares pointedly at Hill, who is remarkably quiet, for her.

"Because we thought he was _our_ asshole, Barton. Turns out he wasn't. Or isn't anymore."

Six weeks is a short time in politics, apparently. Clint doesn't buy it.

"What was it - the mass graves? The systematic rapes? Or because he's selling his oil to the Chinese now? You telling me that we didn't know any of that six weeks ago?"

Hill's head bops up at that, and she stares at Clint.

"You're not paid to think, Barton," she says. She wants to add something, but he snaps back before she can open her mouth again.

"Hey, so I watch the news. The washed up carnie can even _read. _Can the Council?"

"Just go do your job, Barton," Fury says, but his voice is kind of tired and Clint understands that he's not being dismissive; the Director may be just as pissed off as he is.

And so Hawkeye packs his bags, fretting quietly that he can't take his bow in the hand luggage but since it qualifies as sporting equipment, at least it will be in his bag at the other end (provided the airline doesn't lose it in Frankfurt). Someone will meet him in Brazzaville with the things you can't take one a plane at all.

…..

Clint is welcomed by Mbuto's sycophants with open arms, the hero of New York and all that. Apparently they didn't get the memo about how they're no longer so popular back where he came from, or else his cover story - he's now freelance, selling security and protection - really was convincing. The up-front pay (in cash) is pretty fucking amazing for a third-world hell-hole; Mbuto sure has his priorities straight.

First time Clint gets close to the man himself is for an Independence Day speech (independence from what, exactly?) and he doesn't waste any time. The food in the place is disgusting – the pre-mission briefings stressed that meat is a no-go thanks to various parasites, and Clint is _not_ a vegetarian – and even in the so-called presidential palace where he bunks the sanitary facilities suck. So, first chance to complete the op, he grabs.

It helps of course that Ex-Agent Barton The Security Guru set up the security arrangements himself, pro that he is. So his sightlines from the rooftop are excellent, and the timing and choreography of the event have his back to the sun; people won't be able to see let alone identify him. Targeting should always be this convenient.

Five arrows is what it takes, not because he needs to make sure, but because he figures he might as well take out the General and three other prize specimen from Mbuto's inner circle who are dancing attendance on the Big Man on the stage (he leaves the foreign minister, who seemed the most sensible of the lot, just grazes his cheek with an arrow so it doesn't look like the guy arranged the thing). And yes, Clint knows he's stepping over his brief, but what the hell. From what he's read, the whole lot is _this_ close to indictment in The Hague anyway.

Getting out of town afterwards is easy; the jeep's ready, stashed away from the city centre and even though he's one of very few white guys around, Clint has no trouble making his way through the mix of chaos and celebration caused by his handiwork.

Halfway to his extraction point, though, there's gunfire and Clint stops to investigate from over a hill. A bunch of bandits or whatever – actually Mbuto's thugs, judging by bits of uniform – are attacking a small refugee camp full of unarmed, pathetic civilians and aid workers.

_Well, hell. _

The thugs aren't used to dealing with a professional and getting rid of them is almost ridiculously simple, especially since Clint uses his bow and they have no sounds by which to track his location and movements. It's over in minutes and the ensuing silence is deafening. The survivors – many of them kids, with black eyes big as saucers – stare at Clint like he's some kind of avenging angel, with a mixture of revulsion and awe. He has no idea how he should feel about that, and so decides not to.

The closest thing to a person responsible for the camp is a doctor from some idealistic relief organization. She comes up to him and follows him around as he retrieves his arrows. (The reason Hawkeye always goes for the eyes, when he can, is that it's relatively easy to pull the arrows back out; fletching the suckers takes a lot of time.) The doc winces a bit at the squelching sound that happens when he does the twist-and-pull thing, but she's a physician in the middle of a civil war and has probably seen and heard worse. Clint gives her silent points for not retching, like he did the first couple of times he did this.

She doesn't bother asking him who he is – smart lady - but she does want him to know she understands what he's done for her and the people in the camp. He shrugs it off.

"Too little, too late," he says, but doesn't offer any further explanation.

"Well, thank you, anyway," she says with her cute French accent, and he thinks she probably means it, despite her evident ambivalence over the carnage he's leaving her with. The people she is protecting are still here, and that matters.

Clint looks at her, one professional to another.

"No, thank _you_."

Extraction point is only a couple of hundred miles away according to his GPS, so Clint just keeps some water and gives the doc everything he's got in the car by way of supplies, plus the cash he got from Mbuto for that short-lived security gig. Hill will have a bird, of course, but since he's not entirely sure he'll still have a job at all when he gets back that's the least of his worries.

The doctor and a couple of dozen of the kids watch him leave in silence, then turn to bury their dead.

…..

Since he still has five minutes before he's supposed to meet Fury for the debrief, Clint heads to the coffee room and grabs a Nespresso capsule from Hill's private stash - marked "don't even think about it" – and mentally thanks whoever washed his "Archers Do It With A Recurve" mug while he was away. (The mug comes from an archery competition he entered after he left the army, with a vague notion of finding kindred spirits. The other competitors snickered at his unorthodox handhold and made patronizing comments about his double armguard, and stopped talking to him altogether when he … didn't miss. He'd tossed the medal in the trash on his way out - basket at a hundred feet, didn't even look - but the mug is cool, so he kept it.)

Careful not to slosh – no point wasting good java, thank goodness for a steady hand – he walks up to Fury's office, past the command center. Some of the monitors are set to CNN; seems like there's been little mourning for Mbuto, and the foreign minister is putting together an interim government, looking mediagenic with that dramatic bandage on his cheek and promising land reform. Clint isn't all that optimistic, but he raises his cup to the guy before walking into Fury's office.

Once he gets there he doesn't bother knocking, after all he's being asked to come at eleven hundred on the dot and that's what it is. Besides he expects to get fired, so who cares?

Hill and Coulson are there with the Boss; the three of them were obviously discussing something. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the something is Clint, since the discussion comes to an abrupt halt when the archer walks in.

Fury does not seem amused. Then again, he never is, so who knows what he's thinking behind that patch. His face has basically one mode: grim. As always, he gets straight to the point.

"Agent Barton. Care to enlighten me exactly why you killed off Mbuto's entire junta, instead of just the guy you were sent to take out?"

Clint shrugs.

"Just being proactive," he says. "Thought I'd save another six weeks of dithering and however many dead civilians would pile up in that time. Besides, I left the least objectionable one."

Hill is not impressed, and says something like, "You _thought? _We're not paying you to think." It's, like, the third time she's used this line and it's starting to really piss Clint off.

He takes another sip of her coffee and fixes her with his most intense stare but it's Fury he's really talking to. Slowly, and deliberately, he's dictating his quitting notice to the Boss.

"If you want a flying monkey, sir, I know a circus."

Coulson seems to be suppressing a smirk, although with that guy's poker face it's hard to tell.

Fury lets out a deep breath that seems to be incorporating an hours' worth of stored up opinions, but all he says is, "Coulson will be your handler from now on, Barton. May the Force be with you, Coulson. Dismissed, both of you."

Oh.

Well. So much for getting fired.

And … well, _shit_. So he's got a handler now? Probation must be over, too. Four months early.

Bloody hell.

That seems to be it and there isn't really anything else to say, so Clint nods his acknowledgment and turns to leave. Coulson follows, his chair scraping on the metal floor as he gets up. On their way out they hear Hill's slightly indignant voice.

"That's _it_, sir? What about the reprimand?"

They don't hear the Director's response, since Coulson picks that precise moment to close the door behind them. He gives Clint a suspiciously bright look, like he's happy about something.

"Another coffee, Barton? We should have a chat."


	2. Tbilisi

II

_Tbilisi_

It's three years into Clint's job with S.H.I.E.L.D., and he has settled into the place about as much as he'll ever settle into anything. He has pretty well established himself as Fury's go-to guy for tough missions, the one with the highest and cleanest kill ratio in S.H.I.E.L.D. history – a hundred-and-twenty-seven out of a hundred-and-twenty-eight, and no collateral civilian damage. (Ever.)

As for that one miss, it wasn't Clint's fault: The extraction team forgot (_forgot!_) that Afghanistan is eight _point five_ hours ahead of EDT, not eight, and brought the exfil chopper in half an hour early, allowing Mullah Ahmed to live and plant IEDs another day. Clint spat curses all the way back to Baghram, and told Fury that next time S.H.I.E.L.D. wants to play around in a war zone, they bloody well better have a military liaison at the very least, and _fuck_ inter-agency turf battles. As far as Clint is concerned, war is for soldiers.

Actually, in general Clint doesn't swear nearly as much as he used to; when he does it tends to be more targeted, like he's deploying smart bombs instead of cluster munitions. When he does let fly, it's usually in the direction of people who try to tell him what to think or do, when all the evidence points in another direction. People like Hill, and to a lesser extent the Director.

It helps that the archer and Coulson have a pretty sweet arrangement going to minimize Clint's interaction with his superiors: as long as Hawkeye _mostly_ stays within mission parameters, Coulson _mostly_ lets him get away with slightly nebulous reports how things actually went down.

When Hill complains about the missing bits, Coulson makes something up and Clint swipes her Nespresso capsules until he's clawed back roughly the value of the shit he doesn't give about her bitching. Coulson pretends not to notice those forays into juvenile revenge, and Clint pretends that he believes his handler has no idea he's doing it. Anything that keeps the archer from icing Fury's Deputy, Coulson will take as a win; Clint just likes Nespresso.

All in all, things work pretty well for everybody and Fury is pleased – as pleased as Fury ever gets about anything -with his star asset, including Clint's occasional penchant for unorthodox battle strategy and tactics.

Until Tbilisi.

…..

In the three or four weeks he's been there to set up the mission, Clint has taken a reluctant liking to Georgia. It kind of reminds him of himself: Pretty thoroughly fucked up - thanks to a mixture of catastrophic circumstances, malevolent outside machinations and innate pigheadedness - but trying to make a go of it against the odds.

The country shows off its thousand-plus-year old cathedrals, fortresses and religious icons with as much pride as it does the tacky Stalin rugs you can find in the markets (Georgia's most infamous son just won't go away). Add to that a people capable of heart-stopping warmth and hospitality on one hand and instant, brutal violence on the other, and you get a place that simply refuses to fit into any kind of template. Oh, and the food …

Thanks to simmering conflicts with two separatist republics – both essentially run by Russian organized crime – Georgia is full of guns, and people without qualms about using them. You can still find remnants of the former Soviet arsenal, including Strontium-90 batteries used to power the old missile defence grid (a number of folks have died trying to carry them across the mountains to the black markets in Turkey); rusting ICBMs sweat nitroglycerin on abandoned airfields. If you add to all that the Chechen terrorists and Al Qaeda fighters hiding in the Pankisi Gorge and the ungovernable nature of most of the ethnic groups that have made the Caucasus a battleground since the eleventh century, and what you get is a toxic stew in which three or four diverse interest groups are liable to butt heads with each other in never-ending variations.

For a professional assassin, the place is a veritable smorgasbord, one-stop-shopping and trick-or-treat all rolled into one. His target has been busy harvesting opportunities for weeks.

It's a mild evening in May, and the archer is sitting in the shadows on a crumbling balcony on the second floor of an old abandoned house, rendered uninhabitable since the last earthquake and never fixed up. The only people in Georgia that have money for anything are corrupt politicians and organized crime bosses, and none of them are particularly interested in fixing up infrastructure.

Despite the ominous cracks in the walls and the dusty rubble piled up in front of the house, someone has installed a satellite dish on the balcony; the wire leads into a ground floor apartment across the street. Apparently, there is still electricity to be tapped from the ruin when the power does come on, and some enterprising citizen is getting theirs for free.

The dish makes a perfect screen. Clint would like to be higher up, but here in Tbilisi's Old Town two or three stories is about as high as you get. Many of the top floors are rickety and barely level; building higher would be lunacy in a place where the earth shakes as often and as violently as the political landscape.

Clint sits on a pile of loose bricks from what used to be a wall, his flak jacket tossed beside him. His bow sits on top of the jacket – wouldn't want to get _that _dusty, now. He is absently chewing on a hunk of khachapuri, oblivious to the bits of crumbly cheese filling that dots the black leather of his vest. (The Hawk has decided that next to the alabaster-skinned women with their angelically arched black eyebrows, the food is definitely the best thing about Georgia.)

He knows he's in for the long haul and doesn't expect anything to happen until after dark, if the chatter Coulson has picked up on the internet and the wires is on the level; and so he sits in his nest and watches as dusk falls. He represses his longing after the best grilled meat on the planet (the smells wafting up from the restaurant down the street are torture) and focuses on the sights and sounds below. An enthusiastic soccer game has been ranging up and down the street for hours now, with stubby-kneed kids rotating in and out as they get hauled off for a dinner break. There's electricity tonight; the streetlights allow the game to continue past dark as the haunting melody of an ancient song falls from an open window down the block.

Clint wonders briefly what it's like for the people who live here, carving moments like this out of a world too often shattered by men for whom peace means business lost.

Clint's target, according to information picked up by an informant on the Black Sea coast, has apparently been hired by one of the Abkhaz crime bosses to off a local contact. Probably a deal gone sour, or the guy's gotten too close to a rival – who knows. His target is presently entertaining her mark in one of the restaurants down the street; his place of business is further up the hill behind him, and he expects them to head this way shortly.

Coulson is in Clint's ear, but has no eyes on him; he's in the car, a couple of blocks away. Fury had been pretty clear about one thing: the target is too dangerous, too lethal, too … Too everything, basically.

She's a killing machine, the file said. Ruthless, efficient and effective, built for one purpose only. No point risking two agents, or to let anyone get close – that's playing on her turf. Minimum distance twenty feet, is what the threat assessment says. Precisely where Hawkeye and his silent bow come in, and why Coulson is now in a car several blocks east.

"Take her down as soon as you get the chance," Fury had said. "You won't get another. Trust me on this, Barton."

And so Clint waits. Waits to get his sightline, calculates trajectories, wind direction. Throat would be best from this angle, he figures. She's trying to seduce her mark, so she'll probably wear something low cut.

His eyes are trained on the door of the restaurant, the khachapouri long gone. _Soon_, he figures – even the fabled Georgian hospitality can only last so long. Besides, if she's as beautiful as that grainy picture he saw, Mr. Local Gunrunner will be getting both impatient and frisky.

Shadows move behind the front window. The door opens, and light from inside the restaurant spills out on the cobbled street. Several figures emerge, most of them hulking and tall – one slight and short.

The bow glides into his hand; Clint reaches over his head with a fluid motion and draws an arrow, nocks it.

His target and her mark walk towards Clint's position, arm in arm, three thuggish looking types close behind. Body guards probably, judging by the way they hold their beefy hands slightly away from their thighs. _Hip holsters. How … quaint._

She moves with the grace of a cat, despite her heels and the cobblestone; the streetlight – still on after nine, a rare miracle – catches her hair, which flames red against the blue of the night. She leans into her companion – he's half a head taller than she is – and opens her mouth for him, her tongue wetting her lips until they glisten. He bares his teeth, and Clint imagines the predatory smile creeping across the guy's face as he anticipates the delights the evening will yet provide.

Just at the moment when he pulls the string, a round object bounces down the street - a soccer ball, followed in very short order by three young boys, tumbling down the street for one last round of fun before bedtime, while there's still street light to be had. One of them shrieks in glee when the ball takes a sudden seventy-degree turn, having hit an oddly shaped cobble stone; apparently odd bounces have their own rules and he's just scored a point. The two others run out and in between Clint's target, her date and the accompanying thugs, while the ball shoots into the dark passageway between two houses.

And the night explodes.

There's the rapid fire of something Clint recognizes as a Glock, and his target's date is on his knees, red blooming from his shirt. The man falls over gracelessly, like a puppet whose strings have been cut – clearly an unpopular guy, with more than one enemy. The woman dives and rolls, getting back on her feet in a crouch and reaching under her dress.

Date Night's goons answer the gunfire; one of the kids shrieks like he's been hit but he may just be scared. There is an answering scream from inside one of the houses – a parent, realizing. A bullet ricochets mere inches away from Clint's right shoulder, spraying him with concrete splinters and dust. Despite the distractions, the archer keeps his eyes on his mark.

That doesn't stop him from firing a couple of arrows into Date Night's buddies, who were taking aim against the Ambush Gang right through the small clump of terrified kids who are now basically frozen in terror, too frantic to even think about getting down on the ground. Clint's shots are clean and through the throat, the way he prefers it, giving the kids a momentary reprieve from the cross fire and the guy in the alley something less to shoot at.

Clint expects his mark to melt into the shadows; her work is done, her target eliminated. She'll still get paid regardless of who fired the bullet - dead is dead. At least that's how Clint's contracts used to work, before he joined the side of the notional angels. Always good to let someone else do the wet work for you.

He waits for a second to see whether she'll get taken out by the alley guys, whom he doesn't have a bead on from where he is, before he lets fly. There's an element of professional courtesy involved here – the _no, after you_ approach. Clint has taken this route a couple times before; last time was in some hick town in Tennessee, where the locals had a feud going that went back to Confederation and was starting to affect the local economy. It came to a shootout (the _definitely-not-OK Corral_, he called it), and he'd allowed a few of them off each other before taking out the head honchos he'd been sent after. It's the one thing Coulson and Clint really don't see eye to eye on, mostly because Phil finds it a bitch to sanitize the mission report.

Clint pulls his bow string taut, almost to a kiss. Top of her neck, in case she wears something like Kevlar under _that_ … Nah. Not likely.

_Shit. _A couple more of Date Night's buddies pour out of the restaurant. A door to one of the houses opens, a frantic mother waving at her kids to _get the hell inside._

But then he sees it: Red hair flaming in the street light, his targetputs herself between the kids and the attackers in the alleyway, and unleashes the knives she had under her dress into the dark, all the while shouting something at the boys in Russian. They unfreeze and run for the open door; it slams shut behind them. No one will emerge from the house for hours – the people in this neighbourhood know when to keep their heads down.

Three children are safe, and something goes off inside Clint's head.

Now some people have questioned whether Hawkeye has a conscience, given what he does for a living. He does. He _does._ But he usually engages it in advance, when he puts all the info together that he's given, and decides whether or not to take a job, and how he'll carry it out. That way, when he does it, _conscience_ doesn't get in the way of speed and efficiency. It's part of what makes him so good at what he does; some people call it ruthlessness.

But right now, something down there doesn't compute, just doesn't fit in the picture he was given, and so he needs to recalculate.

The Black Widow is the product of a ruthless brainwashing program, he was told – childhood and adolescence more fucked up than his own, if that's even possible. But it is, because the betrayals in hers had the weight and the money and deliberation of state power behind it, and she never stood a chance. Turned her inside out, until there was nothing left - until she turned on them.

She's a killing machine, the files say. Slaughters everything in her path, no quarter ever. Any sympathy she deserves for how she got that way, she undid years ago.

_Except … those kids._

The flash of recognition sears. He knows, because … kids.

_They're wrong. This is wrong._

Clint vaults over the balcony. Second story drops are nothing to him; he re-nocks his arrow on the way down and lands about twenty feet away from her on sure feet, bent knees absorbing the shock. From his new vantage point he can see very clearly the remaining thug in the alley; knowing her knife is en route he focuses on the two newcomers, dispatching them, one-two, in a fluid motion before training a third arrow on her.

She spins around to confront this new menace that has dropped down from somewhere. She has no gun; the sultry seductress outfit she's wearing doesn't allow many spots for concealment, and she's just thrown her last knife. She stops in her tracks, her fingers splaying outward in what looks like surrender but more likely is the first step towards weaponizing her hands.

Clint recognizes the slight recalibration of her stance and makes a show of lifting the point of his arrow to point out the direct trajectory to her throat. He watches her in silence as her eyes dart around the scene, taking stock, weighing options.

This is what she sees: Four men down, with arrows protruding from, variously, a larynx, a carotid artery and two eye sockets. One arrow each, all lethal. A man in black leather, bow held horizontally so as not to interfere with his vision of her as he takes her measure, strong arms taut and obviously capable of holding that posture for hours. Her future, focused in a point of black metal.

She is looking at her death, and she knows it. But it is not yet; she is still here.

Clint watches her relax into the situation, waiting for him to make the next move; he beat himself over the head mentally a little for not having thought that far ahead. What should that move be? At this point, it either involves words or letting go of that string.

Unfortunately, when it comes to picking the right thing to say and saying it well, Clint Barton isn't exactly Shakespeare. Sure, he's read the guy's stuff on stakeouts, in hotel rooms - mostly to shut up Hill when she gets into her _he's-just-an-uneducated-carnie _mode. He loves the language, the richness and the cadence of it. Can't reproduce it worth shit, though, when he talks.

The best he can manage, staring at those curiously deep green eyes before him, is a single word, cast as a question.

"Live?"

This throws her a little, and her brows contract in the tiniest of frowns. She replies with the obvious, in English.

"Why?"

He could say something about the joys of living, the beauty of a summer's day, or the laughter of children. Or he could try sarcasm, 'because it beats the alternative.'But he's been where she has, and he knows that there aren't that many summer days, that they've never been children, and that sometimes _the alternative_ doesn't look so bad.

"Because … you're not them," he offers instead, his chin indicating the bodies on the street.

"What am I, then?"

Well, shit. Just his luck, she's into asking questions of her own. He'd kind of stopped thinking at _they gave me the wrong reasons to kill you. _But then it hits him, and now he knows just what it was that he recognized when she made the choice, there, with those kids.

"I have no idea what you are _now_," he replies. "But you _could _be me."

"And you are….?" She's inching forward a bit, and he shakes his head with a small, grim smile. _Stay. Won't work._

"Codename's Hawkeye, I work for an outfit that deals in … covert security. My agency sorts out people like them, when others can't."

"And people like me?" She immediately assumes that he knows who she is. Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow.

"Yeah. And people like you."

"_Who are you talking to, Barton?" _Coulson, in his earpiece.

Clint ignores him, which he knows has a dual impact: First, he can't get talked out of going where he thinks this is headed, and second, it'll make Coulson bring the car around to pull him out.

"_Hawkeye, do you copy? Respond!" _Clint would pull the ear bud out, but his hands are full.

"Then why am I still here?" She sounds like she genuinely wants to know, and her green eyes hold his grey ones in a sort of challenge. "I assume you were sent to kill me."

"Yeah," he says again. "I was. Still can, you know. Based on what I saw, you can cross the twenty feet between us in about 1.5 seconds. Problem is, my arrow here can do that in a lot less time than that. Even faster, if you meet it in the middle."

She almost smiles at that.

"And based on what I've seen, you don't miss." Her English is flawless.

"Nope." Just stating a fact. "I don't."

"So where does that leave us, then?"

He was afraid she was going to ask that, but he's now had a minute or so to think it through and actually has an answer ready.

"You should come work for us," he says. "For S.H.I.E.L.D. You have skills we can use. You'd eliminate security risks, rather than be one. Of course, pay's a lot less than freelance, but more regular. Pension plan, medical, dental. Plus, and here's the good part - you … _usually_ only get asked to kill people who have it coming."

_Clint Francis Barton, king of recruitment pitches._

"You make it sound … irresistible."

Her voice is husky, and there's something almost like a smile dancing behind her eyes. He has the feeling she doesn't smile very often, and feels irrationally pleased.

But he doesn't lower the bow, and he notices her noticing. She asks another question.

"Why?"

_What she means is, why me?_ _You know who and what I am._

"Because you've been fucked over. Like I have. And you're doing … this," he gestures to her erstwhile date, "… because it's all you've got."

He shrugs. "Except it doesn't have to be. You can be … you can do … better. Find some_thing_ to work for, not some_one._ Worked for me. So far, anyway. I can look in the mirror sometimes now, and not cringe. And that's worth something to me. Might be to you."

He really doesn't know why he just spilled his guts like that to a total stranger, but there's something … something …

She studies him carefully; he knows her eyes are missing nothing. His body sculpted to be a weapon as lethal as hers, the scars, the focus, the intensity. He lets his eyes burn into hers, waiting for her answer.

"And if I say no? Will you kill me?"

Shit. She would ask that.

"Only if you make a move on me," he answers. Because, truthfully, he's already decided that this is one calculated kill he won't make, orders be damned.

"You mean you'd let me go, even if I said no?"

She's not exactly incredulous, she moved past that at "come work for us," but she wants to make sure. Besides, that bow is still trained on her larynx; it hasn't wavered.

"Not much point inviting someone to change their life at arrow point, is there? That won't be any better than the crap you've already been through. Won't work unless there's a choice."

He knows she's waiting for more, and he decides to be honest. Again. Why, he has no idea. Maybe he'll figure it out eventually.

"But no, I won't kill you. I'd stick an arrow into you so you can't run after me, though. Let the Georgians try and figure whether you're a perp or a victim in this clusterfuck. Not my problem."

"I assume I will be your problem if I say yes?"

He can't suppress a grin at that. He can just see Hill: "Barton did _what_?"

"Oh, yeah. You could say that."

She smiles back a little, mostly with her eyes, so he knows its real. Somehow, they understand each other, on a level he's not had before, not with anyone. It's a little unnerving. But his bow still has not wavered. Understanding is one thing; trust quite another.

"Tempting, just for that."

Somewhere in the background, a siren has started to pierce the silence of the night. The Georgian police may not be as efficient or fast as their counterparts in other bits of Europe – there's that minor problem of shitty equipment and endemic corruption – but even they can't ignore a gunfight on a public street forever, even if it's in a neighbourhood known to house a number of criminal kingpins.

"So what's the verdict?"

Natasha Romanoff stares at him, then shrugs. It's a curiously ambiguous gesture for one usually so deliberate. That in itself is new.

"I'll give it a shot," she says.

…..

Getting her to the car … well, talk about trust.

"To the wall, hands up against."

"Why?"

"My handler will freak if we walk up to the car together. I need to knock you out so he feels safe. He's gonna give me enough grief as it is."

"And how do you propose to do that, knock me out?"

"Meds."

She considers, weighs the options, nods, and moves to the wall.

"How does that English saying go, in for a penny…?"

The sirens are getting closer, as are the sounds of another car coming up the cobblestoned road. Phil.

"Do you trust me?" Clint asks, softly.

She turns around, arches an eyebrow at him.

"You mean, apart from the fact that you could have killed me at any time over the last few minutes but didn't? No."

He smiles grimly, speed-drops the arrow he has and dials up another setting on his quiver, reaches over his back and draws. The whole thing takes less than two seconds, and her eyes widen a little.

"Good. It's mutual then."

But he doesn't nock the new arrow. Instead, cursing the stupid instincts that brought him past the point that Fury had said was pretty much certain death for any operative, he walks right up to the Black Widow with it poised in his fingers.

"Hold out your hand."

She turns and faces him, and he steps even closer. He can see her nostrils flare a little as she takes in his scent – leather and sweat from the hours in the stakeout, remnants of the aftershave he likes. Her pupils dilate a little, in a reaction that can't be faked, and he feels his own body respond.

_Not that, _a voice screams in his head, _you're in for it already, Barton … _He grates out the next words.

"Your hand?"

She holds it palm up, fingers splayed, her eyes never wavering from his.

He reaches for it with the tip of his arrow, and catches her as she falls.

…..

"You can still kill her, you know." Coulson says mildly, as the Quinjet approaches the helicarrier. "The Director did not specify a location or a method. Just throw her out of the jet. We're still over the Atlantic."

Sometimes, it's hard to remember that underneath that bland accountant exterior, Coulson has as much ice in his veins as the next S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. His time in the field was spent mostly in white-collar crime, but he does have his share of kills under that Alfred Dunhill belt and will do whatever it takes to complete a mission.

"Just in case you don't understand. I can't fix this for you, Clint. This is so far beyond your usual fanciful paperwork origami, it's not funny."

"Phil, shut up. I made the call. I'll _always _make the call on when a mission is good to go. Take it or leave it."

Clint doesn't really want to listen to reason right now. He looks back, where reason lies sprawled across the backseat, carefully cuffed and still tranqued. The line of her jaw is exquisite, her skin like porcelain, and sleeping she looks like she's about fifteen. He hopes fervently that _this_ isn't why he had that sudden impulse not to make the kill.

Fact is, Phil's concern has made him begin to wonder himself whether he hasn't come slightly unhinged. Clint trusts Coulson, more than anyone he's ever met in the general wasteland of his life, and his handler's opinion matters to him.

But then he thinks of those children, the mother at the door and the other parents and siblings he never saw, and he knows what he knows. And that is, if Clint Barton can turn things around and become a good man, or at the very least, a not so very good man doing mostly good things, by however questionable methods – then that's something. And maybe this girl deserves a shot at that too.

…..

As predicted, neither Fury nor Hill is terribly amused. In fact, they are rather pissed off, and Clint is looking at PPO detail for the next few weeks, if not outright dismissal. Phil repeats his suggestion, not looking at Barton.

Hill is offended, but not for the reasons Clint would have expected.

"Kill her now? _Here?_ In S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters?"

Something in that short statement sticks in Clint's craw. As in, he stops feeling defensive and gets _seriously_ pissed off. He turns on Hill with a snarl.

"So, are you telling me you sit in this nice cozy fucking office, full of shiny monitors and expensive toys and wall-to-wall carpeting, and decide who needs to be killed – but only provided it happens out of earshot? Is that it? You don't want to see what it is you're ordering people like me to do, or heaven forbid, get blood under your own nails?"

Phil tries to stop him by putting a hand on Clint's arm, but the archer is on a tear now and shakes him off. Truth be told, it's probably a good thing he doesn't have any of his knives on him right now.

"And if that's how you prefer things, what does that make me – your garbage man? The slightly disgusting cousin who shovels all the shit that you don't want to smell, and who you don't want to introduce to the neighbours because _what might they think_?"

Fury has heard enough. His good eye fixes on Clint with something close to understanding – it'd be a stretch to call it more. But he does make it clear that this is a discussion the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. does not wish to have in his office. Or anywhere, really. And maybe that even includes Hill, who knows.

"That's enough, Barton. You've left us with a god-awful mess, and we'll have to figure out how to deal with it. But let's be clear about one thing. Next time you ignore kill orders will be your last, understood?"

"Oh, of that I have absolutely no doubt, sir," Clint fires back. "But you better make sure then that I don't get many orders based on half-assed intel."

He turns on his heel and leaves.

Coulson whistles soundlessly and stares at Fury.

"So, what next, Director Fury?"

"Give her the tests," Fury growls.

"Excuse me, sir? You're not seriously considering …"

"Seriously, Hill? No. But I _am_ considering it. Way I see it, let's see if we can make a silk purse out of this here shit. Barton may be a pain in the ass and hard to control, but he's got good instincts. And personally I'll take a single novel idea over a hundred recitals of protocol. So get it done, and get out."

An hour later Coulson shows up in the coffee room. He meticulously attaches a label in his best imitation of Hill's handwriting to a brand new box of Nespresso capsules, and sticks them near where Clint keeps his mug, where he'll see them.

Phil figures a month's supply should do. Until Romanoff's test scores come in.


	3. Abidjan

III

_Abidjan_

Third time's the charm, right? Right.

Now, it's not as if Clint hasn't had issues with the way Things Are Done at S.H.I.E.L.D. since Tbilisi; hell, no. He's still the guy who likes doing things his way, and because it usually works, he tends to get away with it. It helps that in addition to Coulson, he now has Natasha to back his plays (and to make up a few of her own, so his don't show up as readily). Mission reports don't stand a chance.

But this one … well, it kinda sticks out, if only because the fuck-ups were cumulative, starting with the conceptual stage, right through execution and evac, and were partly captured on video. _Fucking video.__  
_

Anyway.

It's been a couple of years now since 'Barton-and-Romanoff' became partners. Clint still remembers the first time they were sent out together, a show of sentiment and affection so typically Fury:

"Now, I'm sending you on that mission with Romanoff for one purpose, Barton, and one purpose only. She fucks up, she goes rogue, she so much as_ twitches_, you do what you were supposed to the last time. _Before_ you finish your other job. She's _your _responsibility. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal, sir."

Clint had shrugged, then, and nodded. That was fair enough. No one, including himself, had any real way of knowing whether his impromptu salvage operation of the Black Widow had resulted in an asset or a liability for his employer.

But asset it was. And is. Most definitely.

He's never looked back, really. In the field, he and Natasha complement each other in ways they don't even notice, because it's just … there. Half the time they don't even need to talk, they just know where the other is at any given time, and what needs to be done. And after, they go over things, vent, level out - help get each other back into the headspace necessary for the next job. They're partners, where they used to be solitudes, and it works.

Ever since that first joint mission in Kyiv – a most memorable garden party, four corrupt oligarchs taken out for the price of one – Fury has teamed them up again and again. But he no longer does it because he thinks Natasha will turn her back on S.H.I.E.L.D., or that it's Clint job to clean up the mess he made. No, it's because together they're pretty well unparalleled, the most effective team in the history of the organization – evenly matched, complementary in skill set and temperament. The yin and yang of targeted killings.

Fury, too, knows a good thing when he sees it, goes with what works and doesn't fuck with it while it does. Even when Hill tries to get him to break them up because, you know, _fraternization rules._

"You seen them in bed together?" Fury asks pointedly when she brings it up.

"No … no sir, of course not."

"Then how d'you know they're being inappropriate?"

"Well, sir, the last three missions they shared a hotel room."

"And I'm sure if you look into the mission logs they were posing as a married couple each and every time. Now don't you have something more important to do?"

One thing you can say about Maria Hill, while she may be an organization Nazi and probably has a bound collection of all of her favourite rules somewhere (the book Clint Barton regularly tosses out), she knows when she's beat and so she drops it.

That said, she stares pointedly at Fury when the two agents in question walk into the briefing room behind the other six that have been called in. They arrive side by side, arms touching; after they sit down he leans into her and says something that makes her giggle. Her whispered response, delivered while she is clutching his arm, makes him smirk.

Clint Barton is making the Black Widow_ giggle_. Natasha Romanoff made Hawkeye_ smile. _As far as Hill is concerned, they might just as well be having wild, uninhibited sex on the map table. She averts her eyes and activates the screen.

"Lawrence Katanga," she says when the image of a middle aged, bespectacled black man in his forties comes up. He is wearing Western clothes, and looks like he could be running the New York library.

"Harvard MBA, 1992. His father was President of Côte d'Ivoire, killed in a coup in the mid-nineties. Lawrence has been in exile in the West since. He returned to his country to mobilize the opposition against the ruling strong man, Joseph Dupré – the man responsible for his father's death. Then three months ago Dupré was pressured by the International Monetary Fund into holding an election. Katanga won, two weeks ago."

"Elections fair?" Clint wants to know. It matters, even in a place where the Good Guy is liable to end up being just as corrupt as the Bad Guy.

Fury is used to having Barton ask these kinds of questions. The Hawk does like to have the big picture when he's sent into a mission, and so he's willing to oblige.

"Not according to UN observers. Violence, intimidation of voters, attacks on polling stations – mostly in the areas where Katanga was popular, and mostly organized by the ruling party. That he managed to win anyway is a small miracle, and an indication just how awful the other guy was. Is."

One of the other agents, Johnson, can't contain his curiosity any longer. He's new and eager, and this is his second mission.

"And we come in where?"

Fury fixes him with a glare out of his good eye. It's one thing to drill deeper into the background, like Clint had; it's another to want to skip the briefing altogether and rush straight to the tasking. The one approach might get you info that could be useful; the other can get you killed.

"Problem is, the other guy refuses to quit. Joseph Dupré is a thug, an autocrat, and by now a very rich man. Assets in the billions, hidden around the planet. Claims the elections weren't fair. No shit. They've got Katanga surrounded in a compound outside Abidjan, won't let him come into town to take over. There's street fighting, and luckily the army isn't particularly effective. Some of them may be on Katanga's side, even, or at least hedging their bets to see who'll come out on top."

Johnson is itching for action; it's clear.

"So we're going to get Katanga out?"

"No, we're not. We do that, Dupré's story that Katanga is a Western plant will gain credibility and undermine what he's trying to do. Plus, it wouldn't get him any closer to the presidential palace."

"You want us to take out Dupré instead," Natasha concludes, as Hill nods.

"Operation Abidjan is a targeting, not an extraction," the Deputy Director states flatly. "We can't be seen to be helping install the new Government, but we _can_ do our best to make sure that the old one is sent on its way. Those are the Council's wishes."

"Anyone else have an interest in the place?" Clint asks. He remembers rather clearly the _we thought he was our asshole_ comment Fury had made in respect of the Brazzaville assignment; always good to know what quarters your target may get support from. Fury does too, and so it's him who answers.

"Not that we're aware of. Dupré is pen pals with Chavez and Ahmadinejad, used to be with Ghadafi, but he's pretty well worn out his welcome with everybody else. Even with the Russians and the Chinese."

Clint nods and leans back in his chair. He'll do his own reading on the plane. If there is one thing he'd learned in his years in government, it's never to rely on your briefing notes.

"There'll be four teams going in. Johnson and Maddox are Alpha; Evans and Miyazaki, Beta; Barnes and Noble … Nolan, Gamma; and Barton and Romanoff, you're Delta."

Funny. Hawkeye and the Black Widow are _always_ Delta Team, but Johnson is new and doesn't know that; he also seems to think Alpha means something it doesn't. He preens himself a little, looks around the table to see whether someone else noticed that he'll get to be top dog. Clint mentally marks him down as a liability; the guy might as well be wearing a Starfleet issue red shirt.

"I have a question," Miyazaki pipes up. "What's our story going in? Do we have one? I mean, some of us don't exactly fit in there. You know, Africa."

Probably not a bad idea to point out that only three of the operatives are black, although Fury gives Miyazaki a slightly pained look.

"We're not asking you to blend in. This is an in and out tactical op, minimum time on the ground. Drop is by chopper, ostensibly from one of the gold mines in the North. If by some misfortune you get caught out after the mission, feel free to be geologists, aid workers, UN types, whatever strikes your fancy. Make something up. Place is in chaos, no one will give a shit. Just take Dupré out and leave. Barton knows how this works. He's done this before."

Clint stares at his fingernails for a bit, then looks up. "Yeah, as a soldier. With air and tactical support a phone call away. This …"

He allows his words to trail off and glares intently at Fury, who holds his gaze with his good eye.

"You know this is shoe string crap, sir, don't you."

It is not a question, and so Fury doesn't bother to answer. Ops like this shouldn't be put together on five day's notice, everybody knows that, but the Council has clearly decided that Dupré has worn out his welcome and needs to be removed. _Now_. Times like this, the "L" in S.H.I.E.L.D. seems like someone's idea of a shitty joke.

Natasha twitches an eyebrow at him, and Clint suppresses a grim smile. This is the kind of mission where he'll be wearing his old dog tags, just … because. He isn't superstitious, but even in the best of circumstances effecting regime change in a country named after the body parts of an endangered species (stuff that it's now illegal to sell anywhere on the planet) has clusterfuck written all over it.

As it turns out, he's not wrong.

…..

By the time they're in country, eighteen hours later, the place is in full-on civil war mode. In this part of the world, people still seem to understand democracy as meaning "my guy wins." When that doesn't happen all hell breaks loose, and pretty soon it isn't even about politics anymore and people are at each other's throats just because.

Things are deteriorating so quickly, the UN is in the process of pulling out its mission; most foreign embassies are down to essential staff and a number of governments have put on planes to evac their nationals. Even the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders are talking about leaving, and the only Westerners that can be relied upon to stay are the usual small posse of disaster journalists. The French, the US and the Brits have sent in small military contingents to secure their departing evac flights, but beyond that it's pretty much every man for himself.

The team's chopper is meant to fit in with the exodus; Quinjets are obviously out, if there's to be plausible deniability of outside involvement. With the mission having been put on with minimal notice and everyone trying to get out of the country, the only local lift S.H.I.E.L.D. could procure is a 30-year-old Ukrainian piece of scrap metal that Clint figures is held together with chewing gum.

Throughout the country's major cities, fighting is widespread and vicious, by now a toxic blend of tribal and personal resentments masquerading as a political cause. Mostly it appears to be spontaneous though, not orchestrated - gunfire one minute, calm the next. Flash mobs, African style, completely unpredictable and hence ever more dangerous, especially for foreigners caught up in them.

Coulson pitches an official request to HQ to abort, at Clint's suggestion. Given the shifting ground that comes with an active conflict, they simply don't have enough information about conditions at Dupré's stronghold, and BBC reports (their local stringer, a freelance adrenaline junkie reporting in via sat phone and a hand-held camera, is the best source of intel they've got) suggests that the reluctant loser has days left at best. There have been daily assaults on the presidential palace; sooner or later one will get through. The risk doesn't seem worth it.

The Council is adamant. Dupré must be taken down, and S.H.I.E.L.D. is the agency to do it. The mission is a go.

"For people who don't want our involvement in this known, someone on the Council seem awfully keen for us to be the ones doing this job," Clint remarks to Natasha when the word comes. She shrugs.

"Politics," she says. "Someone's always interested in something. Especially when it comes to regime change. Don't suppose the Council's any different."

They deploy at nighttime. That part's easy; air traffic control in this part of the world is spotty on a good day, and the Ivory Coast hasn't seen a good day in weeks. The chopper sets down with a groan and an ominous cracking sound on one of the high rises right downtown. Abidjan actually has a few of those, even looks quite modern from the air, but the buildings are unkempt and dilapidated. The country's considerable economic potential has been pretty much pissed away by the kleptocracy run by Dupré and his minions, and it shows.

The presidential palace is easy to spot; it's the only place that still has electricity. Power brings its own generators, apparently, and a good chunk of their output is directed at perimeter security. Surprisingly, the streets are empty; Clint had expected an angry mob surrounding the place. He and Natasha take point in taking out the guards silently, one by one, and Clint lets Johnson figure out for himself that 'Alpha' is only a letter, by making the guy retrieve his arrows for him.

"What?" the Hawk asks when Johnson stares in fascinated revulsion as he wipes the tips off on his fatigues and sticks them back in his quiver.

As per the plan they've had time to come up with, Alpha and Gamma help themselves to a couple of un-bloody uniforms. They'll stay at the gate, as back-up and look-out, while Beta and Delta teams head into the compound to do the job.

Occasional moving shadows in the park-like setting denote in-ground security, moving seemingly at random. Either they're disorganized amateurs or highly skilled professionals; Clint hopes for the former, but gives Natasha a hand signal to prepare for the latter.

Satellite imagery had shown a jacaranda tree in front of the windows into the President's suite. Clint heads straight for it, knowing that Natasha and her silent knives have his back. The tree is an easy climb, thick branches that hold his weight without much complaint. The flowers are a pain in the ass, but luckily Clint isn't the allergic type and he still has decent sightlines if he squints through them.

As luck will have it, the President is at home, and seems to be in a huddle with a bunch of his cronies. Probably plotting their exit strategy, Clint figures, because they sure as hell aren't in charge of anything anymore.

It's a beautiful night, the Southern Cross is high in the sky. It's surprisingly quiet; any gunfire is sporadic, and far away; the only sounds are the melodious song of African crickets and the occasional _thud_ when one of Natasha's knives hits home. (Amateurs it was.) It's almost too quiet, Clint thinks, but he doesn't know what Abidjan is supposed to sound like, after a day of violent unrest. Maybe people are just taking a break from the bloodshed.

He whispers into his mic to Coulson.

"Single shot is out. Man's got company. We either wait, or I go explosive, take 'em all out at once, then run for it. Sit rep?"

Coulson knows that what Barton is after is an indication whether waiting is an option.

"All quiet in the streets here," he says. "You've got a few …."

As it happens, this is precisely the moment where the question of 'silence' becomes academic. Gunfire rings out from the front gate, and pandemonium erupts just outside. Clint doesn't hesitate and immediately shoots an explosive arrow into the room, before anyone there can react. Bodies are tossed in all directions, with the exception of Dupré who bears the brunt of the explosion and literally flies apart, the arrow having been embedded in his eye socket.

_Mission accomplished. _

Retreat, however, is completely fucked.

Clint vaults out of the tree, catches a glimpse of Natasha who waves him in the opposite direction from where they came.

"Front gate's not an option," she says, stating the obvious. Machine gun fire speaks louder than words. Alpha and Gamma are out; there's no contact. Coulson confirms he can't get a bead on them, his voice extra flat and calm – his personal tell, when the news is grim.

There's an all out assault on the palace happening now, with Katanga supporters clearly having decided to take matters into their own hand, starting reform efforts with the people they thought were presidential guards. There's no indication who may have fired first, the locals or one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, but it hardly matters.

Dead is dead. At least Clint hopes his fellow agents are dead; mobs are capable of worse things.

Certainly, the presence of the attack force explained the eerie silence of a few minutes ago, the emptiness of the street. Element of surprise, and all that. Clint wonders whether their own actions were seen but doubts it; they'd have been stopped. Or assisted. The crowd must have amassed elsewhere, in an unusual show of planning.

_Fuck. Where was our intel?_

"Beta team, do you copy? Meet us at the north wall." Natasha.

They don't wait for a response and start running; there's people pouring out of the palace now, whether to join the fray outside or to get away from it and the fire in the wing Clint blew up, is hard to say. Fact is, a lot of them are carrying guns, business end forward.

Clint stops briefly and fires another explosive arrow into the building's main opening to slow them down, while Natasha takes care of strays getting in their way with her Glocks. Next thing, the building goes up in a ball of fire way bigger than Clint's arrow merits, knocking them both for six. _On-site ammo storage_ – obviously Dupré and his gang were prepared for a siege.

"You okay?"

Clint huffs at Natasha as they pick themselves up off the ground. Biggest drawback of carrying that quiver - the thing is a fucking _pain_ when you have to roll.

"Yeah. You?"

He answers her by picking up his pace.

The North Wall is about twenty feet high. Would be an easy climb with a grappling hook, except the bloody thing is topped with three rolls of razor wire; Dupré obviously did not feel very secure in the love of his people.

Clint spits a curse, dials up another explosive arrowhead – he's got one left after this – and lets fly about the time Evans and Miyazaki get there. Evans is covered in blood ("not mine," he reassures them) and all four of them make it out across the smoking ruin of the back wall. If Katanga ever gets to take over, he'll need to invest in some serious renos.

Coulson comes on with more bad news. The chopper's out – third-rate Ukrainian equipment may make for a good disguise, but rather unreliable transportation. What remains of the strike force is ordered to head for the airport immediately, to evac with the last flight put on by the US military for embassy personnel. It leaves at nine a.m.; Coulson is already headed to the airport in an armoured jeep courtesy of the remaining marine detachment from the embassy, and has secured spots on the flight for the surviving team members.

And no, they can't bring the jeep to pick them up; there's a thousand people with guns in between them and the palace, and the marine commander won't risk it. Beta and Delta Teams are on their own to get to the airport. Clint turns off the comm and shrugs his quiver in place.

"Let's move," he says simply.

The area of Abidjan where they are is now officially a war zone. The veneer of peaceful civilization granted by several dozen multi-story office buildings is only skin deep; gun fire echoes around almost every corner and not a single ground floor window is whole.

Word of the President's demise does not appear to have gone out yet, although it's only a question of time; cell phones and twitter accounts abound, even here. But even once the news spreads, those who benefited from his reign will not likely slip quietly into that good night, and quite probably exact revenge before they do. Dupré's people outgun Katanga's by a factor of at least four. The fighting will likely rage on for weeks, if not longer, and where there are no guns it will be done with knives.

The airport is ten kilometres to the south, so they turn their back on downtown and start moving at a good, steady clip, as fast as the need to stick to the side of buildings permits.

About six blocks into their trek, Evans gets hit in the shoulder by a stray ricochet bouncing off a steel girder and goes down hard, his own blood now mingling with that already on his shirt. Natasha manages to apply a makeshift pressure bandage with a piece of dusty cloth she finds hanging off a line; hygiene is the least of Evans' worries right now. Miyazaki picks his partner up and starts half carrying him onward, without a word. They've already left four of theirs behind; there will not be another.

Clint keeps looking for a car to hotwire, but the streets are mostly empty of vehicles. Those that are on the road and aren't burned out are occupied by gangs of thugs wielding semi-automatics, who fire indiscriminately at anything that dares to venture out into the fractured night. A couple of well-placed arrows and two quick shots from Natasha's gun, and they gain possession of a half-rusted jeep. Clint and Natasha pull out the bodies, keeping their guns and Clint's arrows, and Miyazaki loads a groaning Evans into the back seat. He sticks one of the spare weapons into the crook of his arm in the hope his partner can still use it in a pinch.

With Clint driving and Natasha riding shotgun, they get through downtown relatively unscathed, although the car suffers when he rams it into an oncoming vehicle that tries to block their way, spinning the thing around. Natasha takes out the driver, fires a shot into the gas tank and they keep going without looking back at the fireball.

The car runs out of gas after about six or seven kilometers, coming to a stuttering halt. Still, it gained them considerable time and Clint immediately starts looking for a replacement as they walk, dragging a weakening Evans with them. He asks to be left behind but Clint tells him to just fuck off, 'coz that just ain't happening.

With the grey light of dawn, the fighting intensifies and they advance slowly, street by dilapidated street, forced at one point to duck into courtyard where three children take shelter behind their mother in a corner, staring at the intruders with eyes like saucers.

"Nous partirons dans un instant," Natasha says in French. "Ne vous inquietez pas." _We'll be leaving immediately. Don't be afraid._

Two minutes and a quick check with Miyazaki's GPS later, they make a run for it. Clint spends the next two blocks cursing under his breath. Natasha doesn't bother asking why.

The way to the airport leads through increasingly poor neighbourhoods and is made rather more difficult by the fact that a number of them are on fire. Whenever one erupts it does so spectacularly, the result of a highly combustible marriage between flimsy, cardboard construction and the fact that Molotov cocktails are the weapon of choice for those who don't have guns.

They're about a kilometer from the airport when they come across another band of armed thugs who have surrounded a white, battered SUV. The vehicle appears to have blown two tires, driving across the sharp remnants of a sandstone building brought down by explosives - probably in the early days of the riots. If there was a fire it's long since gone out, although the smell lingers.

Two of the thugs are armed with Uzis, the rest are wielding machetes. The owners of the SUV are about to be overwhelmed; if the very sporadic gunshots emanating from the front window are any indication, they have one gun and its running out of ammo.

Clint really wants that car.

But then he hears it, that sound coming from inside: a baby, crying. And a voice, a woman's voice, pleading in Parisian-accented French.

"Laissez-nous, laissez-nous; on a des enfants blessés." _Leave us alone, we have injured children with us. _

Shit.

"Clint."

Natasha heard it too. Understanding passes between them, and they vault into action. She starts shooting two-handed at anything that moves, while he fires arrow after arrow, drawing the thugs away from the car. As soon as she has emptied the magazine of one of the guns she's picked up along the way she drops it, moves on to the next.

It takes longer than it should, as the thugs are getting reinforcements by the minute. The car is clearly the holy grail of the moment, its occupants a minor inconvenience that will doubtless be dealt with swiftly when victory comes. The lone gun inside the SUV falls silent after a shot from an alleyway.

The angle they're at, there's no proper shot to be had at the remaining thugs, who are rapidly converging on their position. They'll need to get in between the SUV and the attackers.

"There," Clint points at the optimal spot from a tactical standpoint. He doesn't wait for his partner to acknowledge; he knows that she does. Leaving Miyazaki and Evans – the latter can't fight, the former can't leave his wounded partner but wil provide cover – Natasha and Clint make a run for it, taking shelter behind whatever is on offer, zigzagging and dodging bullets. They end up behind a dusty pile of bricks, in front of a wall of corrugated metal soft enough that they won't have to worry about ricochets.

They're back to back now, totally in focus and in synch, mirror images dodging bullets and concrete splinters, dealing death with every bullet, every arrow. It's almost like a dance, one they have rehearsed and executed a dozen times over, and when they're done the silence is absolute.

They wait for a moment to see if anything moves in the shadows. There's a small motion in a curtain behind one of the windows, but it doesn't happen again and Clint figures it was probably just the early morning breeze or a scared civilian, checking if it's over.

He heads for the dead bodies, the ones with his arrows in them. He's running low, and they're not there yet.

"Ç'est vous, encore!" a tight, breathless voice comes out of the SUV. "Ç'est la deuxième fois que vous m'avez sauvé la vie." _It's you again. This is the second time you have saved my life._

He turns and frowns, but it comes to him quickly and he suppresses an involuntary curse. _Shit. _It's the French doctor from that refugee camp in the Congo, from a couple of years ago. It's not too surprising that she recognizes him, he supposes; the occasion then had been somewhat memorable and this is a bit of a rerun. And as for the coincidence of her presence here, today – she obviously makes it her business to help people in the world's hellholes. Since Côte d'Ivoire currently ranks near the top among those, it's almost logical that she should be in Abidjan.

He can only hope that she won't make the connection between his presence in a given place, and the sudden demise of its resident strongman.

He doesn't bother responding though; there are more important things to attend to, and they really don't have time for small talk. But Natasha has noticed the exchange (when does she ever miss anything?) and takes a couple of steps over to Clint.

"Friend of yours?"

"Acquaintance," he shrugs. She arches her eyebrow at him, and he flashes her a fleeting grin.

"Jealous?" he drawls, and she snorts.

"You have nothing to worry about, Agent Romanoff. _Way_ before your time, and I don't think she remembers me fondly. Left her with a few dead bodies to dispose of."

"Close friend, then?" his partner shoots back, a smile dancing in her eyes that hits him a little in the gut. Somehow the adrenaline in their system always seems to translate into … what? Playful banter? Is that what this is? Clint files the thought under _don't examine too closely._

"More like, I'm surprised she still talks to me. Arrows, ya know."

He pulls one out with a deliberate twist, shakes off the bits of thug that cling to the tip with a flourish. Natasha doesn't bat an eyelash. He'd have been surprised if she had. For a moment, the two of them look each other in the eye, take a breath in recognition of who and what they are, what they have done.

_This dance is done, and we're still here. Again._

The French woman has been watching the interplay with some fascination, and introduces herself to Natasha with a resolute expression on her face. To Clint, too, for that matter – they'd never actually gotten to exchanging names the last time.

"Béatrice Duchamp," she says. "Médecins sans Frontières."

"Peter Marsden," says Clint, not skipping a beat. He leaves it to Natasha to come up with a name for herself. And since they can't very well pretend to be an aid worker or even the rugged extractive sector type, given what the good doctor has just witnessed, he adds, "ArmaPro International."

Private security – one of the few industries that thrive in places like this. S.H.I.E.L.D. should maybe have thought of that as a cover, before saddling its team with a Ukrainian piece of flying shit in the name of an explanation no one asked for. This part of the world is crawling with mercenaries - a profession Clint feels some affinity with, regardless of what it says on his paycheck. He makes a gesture that encompasses all three of his fellow agents; Béatrice's eyes widen a little as she takes in the small arsenal of acquired guns they're carrying, and Evans' condition.

"Colleagues."

Two other doctors, one a man named Torsten Something whose horn-rimmed glasses and demeanour practically scream 'German,' and an older woman, who introduces herself as Trine Petersson in a vaguely Scandinavian lilt, follow Beatrice out of the car. Torsten pulls out their dead driver, obviously a local man who doubled as security, checks his pulse and lays him gently on the ground. Then he heads over to Evans with the determined stride of one who knows how to do triage, even in the face of friendship.

Coulson comes on in Clint's ear, asking where they are and what the hell is the hold-up. The plane is military, it _will_ depart on time, and there won't be another.

"We got held up. Heard the gunfire just now, 'bout two klicks from the airport?"

Coulson did.

"Well, that was us."

They have twenty minutes, Coulson warns. Gunfire or no.

"You headed for the airport too?" Clint asks the French doctor.

Béatrice nods.

"If there are any flights left at this point," she says. "We had a spot on the German flight yesterday, but we couldn't leave. One of the children wasn't safe to transport. But she died this morning, so …"

Her voice trails off, and she chokes back a sob.

Scanning the surrounding buildings for movement, finding none, Clint heads over to the car – the supposed prize that has instead become a cause.

The sight that greets him almost turns his stomach. Four kids, ranging from age about four to ten, are sprawled over the back seat, all suffering from what appear to be traumatic injuries. Bandaged eyes, shoulders, everything. The Norwegian, Trine, is clinging to a baby with a head so bandaged it barely shows a face; the little thing just cries and cries, in a voice already dry and hoarse.

"We had more patients than that," Trine says, "but their parents took them when the fighting got bad in the neighbourhood where we have … had our hospital. These ones have nobody left."

The smell in that car is something else. The metallic scent of blood is something both Clint and Natasha are intimately familiar with, but here, coming from these children, it is disturbing, almost obscene. Clint's eyes fall on a little boy, the oldest of the four. Both his feet are gone at the ankles.

"Hacked off with a machete," Béatrice explains softly. "His parents and siblings were all killed. His father campaigned for Katanga."

"He's developing gangrene," she adds matter-of-factly, pointing at the black lines spreading up both the child's legs. "We've been out of medication for a month. The new shipment of antibiotics was supposed to arrive last week."

She stares defiantly at Clint.

"He'll die if he doesn't get to a proper hospital. That's why we're here. To get him out. We would have stayed, even though Paris told us to go."

He almost tells her that she doesn't have to explain why they abandoned their … hospital, lazaretto, whatever it was that they had in town, but there's no time. There really is only one choice, as far as he's concerned. He taps his mic.

"Coulson. How full is that plane of yours?"

Phil's voice comes on in his ear, dispassionate as always. "Why? We've got seats for you. Are Alpha and Gamma teams not down?"

Clint ignores this last; he doesn't feel like confirming the abysmal failure and waste of life that this mission has been. He's got a new target in his sights.

"I need …" he does a quick head count. "Eight additional seats. No, make that seven. Someone can hold the baby on their lap."

Coulson almost loses his cool, for him.

"_Baby_?" he says with an expression of mild surprise.

"Civilians," Clint answers smoothly. "In need of evac. What that plane is for, no?"

"I'd have to check," Coulson replies, his voice a little suspicious. _Barton picking up strays again? _

"This is a US military flight. Council got us on. Additions aren't my call to make."

"Make it yours. We need those seats. _Marsden_ out."

Clint is irrationally pleased with himself that he remembered his off-the-cuff pseud, and turns to the others.

"We'll all need to get in that car. Should be manageable."

He directs Miyazaki to put Evans in the passenger seat with the Scandinavian doctor and the baby, tells Béatrice to climb in the back with her kids, and with Natasha's help proceeds to rip out all the doors. The other three will just have to hang on as best they can, from the outside. If people can ride fifteen to a three-wheeled tuktuk in India, they should be able to manage everybody in a Japanese SUV.

None of the doctors protest when Clint announces that he'll do the driving. He does, in finest Barton fashion – fast and determined despite the missing tires, grinding metal across pot holes and debris, bouncing everyone around but not losing those clinging to the door frames. Trine screams at one point, when he guns the engine and powers straight at a group of thugs trying to stop the car, but self-preservation in the face of a set jaw trumps bravado, and the group scatters just in time. Clint almost regrets it when they do.

Fifteen minutes later and they're at the airport. It's surrounded by a couple of thousand people - Ivoirians, not Westerners - waving wads of cash, all desperate to find some kind of lift to get out. They're being held back by US marines on the other side of the fence, tasked to protect the plane that's visible on the runway behind the wire from being overrun. The scene is raw desperation and chaos and hell's fury all wrapped up in one, and there's no way even Clint can get a car through the throng without having it torn to shreds.

"Out," he says, and nobody argues. They distribute the sick kids and Evans evenly amongst the able-bodied adults; he takes the footless little boy on his back but to do that, he has to leave his quiver behind. No matter, he wouldn't be able to use it in a crowd.

Natasha is the only one not carrying a kid – her body is her best weapon, and she may need it. So she takes point, firing a gun over the crowd to part them as they head for the gate. God knows how they make it to the front but they do, and then all that separates them from the holy grail of air lift is a chain link fence, a locked gate, and a bunch of armed marines.

Coulson is there at the gate, arguing with the officer in charge who doesn't look happy. They come over, and Clint pulls out his dog tags. Fuck that whole inter-agency cooperation thing, pulling rank, whatever. The guy making the decisions is military, and soldiers speak one language better than any other.

"Lance Corporal Clint Barton, Special Ops, Third Group," he says by way of introduction, not giving a shit what Béatrice might think of his sudden name change. Best to go with what it says on the tags. To her credit, she doesn't even flinch.

"Afghanistan, '01 to '03. Requesting transport for these civilians here. Injured kids, sir, and medical personnel required for their treatment. Protection mandate. Sir."

The guy, a Captain, gives Clint a long hard stare.

"Whose kids are they?" he finally asks. "We're not allowed to take locals out of country."

"Mine," Clint says, "and hers. Ours." He points at Natasha with his chin. She nods immediately.

"They're adopted," she says, all practiced sincerity and doe-like green eyes. "We were forced to leave the papers in the car. You know, we were in a rush. All that _horrible _violence …"

Her voice peters off prettily, and it's clear the Captain is smitten, even if he doesn't believe a word he just heard.

"Of course you were," he says, looking at Coulson in the vain hope that the civilian with the impressive badge can do something, _anything, _to reconcile the wildly divergent story lines he's heard this morning, if only so he can justify his passenger manifest.

"Mr. and Mrs. Barton are known for their quick and unorthodox decision-making, even while in the line of duty," Coulson supplies, at least partly truthfully, with his usual deadpan expression. "I only just learned of this one. I have no doubt they will make fine parents."

The Captain takes in the blood and the filth on the four S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, the state of the injured kids and the exhaustion of the doctors, and he, too, makes a decision.

"I'll probably get into shit for this," he says, and nods to his men to open the gate. "You better find a way to make it right when I do."

They make it through, one by one; the marines fire off a couple shots to stop the rest of the throng from crowding in behind them.

Clint nods his thanks to the Captain as he passes, the footless little boy still on his shoulder.

He hands him off to Béatrice gently, silently shaking his head at the stoicism, the … trust in those huge brown eyes. Someone brings a field medic kit, and Béatrice immediately starts rummaging through it, looking for penicillin. When she finds it, she looks up at Clint, her eyes blazing. Whatever she knows, whatever conclusions she may have drawn of who or what he is, he knows with utter certainty she won't speak of them.

What she says is, "Merci, mon ange de la mort."

_Angel of Death. _He's been called worse.

Once they're settled in the plane – he, Natasha, Coulson and Miyazaki have to sit on the floor because it's full now, he leans into Natasha and whispers in her ear while Coulson watches through half-lidded eyes.

"Mrs. Barton? Pleased to meet you."

…..

Mission debrief is pretty acrimonious, even by Clint's standards; it's not always that the agency has such a complete clusterfuck on its hands.

The archer is pissed, very pissed. He'd been smelling a rat throughout this operation, been looking for those _other interests at play, _and now he's found it. More precisely, Natasha has found it, because she's much better at ferreting out such stuff than he is.

Turns out, one of the Council members has been friendly with the Katanga clan for a couple of decades. She also happens to hold a considerable stake in a gold mining operation that's hoping to set up shop in Cote d'Ivoire. And while the S.H.I.E.L.D. operation will not be made public for obvious reasons, there's nothing to stop anyone from whispering a few private words into the right ear. No doubt the incoming government will express its gratitude in due course - perhaps even in the form of mining rights.

So when Fury opens with a grim, "That could have gone better," Clint spits out a lecture on conflict of interest, reckless endangerment and wasted resources that is both succinct and laced with expletives. Normally Fury would shut him down, or Phil would delicately clear his throat, but given that there are four dead agents Fury decides to let him rant for a bit.

"You're not wrong, Barton," he concedes. "I'll raise it at the next Council meeting. Hopefully this won't happen again."

Clint just snorts contemptuously, and Natasha rolls her eyes. Sure. That assurance and fifty grand will buy four empty coffins.

Next, Fury gives the teams moderate shit about getting too involved with the civilian population, which brings another pointed comment from Clint.

"They gave this organization the most idiotic and tortured name imaginable, just so they could have a nice-sounding acronym," he said. "But who, exactly, are we supposed to _shield_, if not injured children? And from what, if not certain death?"

"You can _shield_ them all you want, Barton," Fury snaps back. "Buy them coffee, help get them out of burning buildings, and don't shoot at them if you can help it. But you're _not _supposed to bring them home for tea."

Clint looks over at Natasha, who smiles encouragement at him with her eyes. She tends to lay low at these meetings, lets him blow up and then cleans up the debris behind him. But the way she calculates these things, in this case their ledger got a little more balanced at the very end there, and that's worth a reprimand from the boss any day. Maybe Johnson, Maddox, Barnes and Nolan would agree.

Fury probably does himself even if he can't say it out loud, and Hill has been conspicuously silent. And so Clint decides to shut up and sit back in his chair. He's made his point ,and the kids are safe in France.

But there's more bad news. Turns out, the movement behind the curtain that Clint noticed when they were making their stand around the doctors' SUV? Apparently it was that BBC stringer, whose reports they'd been using in the absence of intel. And he had his camera.

"He managed to acquire detailed footage of you and Agent Romanoff," Fury says, and now he _does_ sound pissed off, although at whom is hard to tell.

"Fortunately, his transmission was intercepted before it could be aired. We had to call in a number of favours from MI-6 to get onward transmittal blocked and all the original data erased."

(What he doesn't say is that he asked Hill to keep a copy of the video, for training purposes. Seeing S.H.I.E.L.D.'s two prime human assets in unstaged action in the field? Priceless. And no one needs to know about the circumstances.)

"That it?" Clint asks. Really, the list of fuck-ups on this baby could fill a toilet roll.

"Yes. No. One more thing." By this point Fury has worked himself into a bit of a general lather, and he doesn't really care whom he directs it at. Clint is the most convenient target, for one thing he can take it, and for another he generally deserves it.

"I hear left your quiver behind," the Director glowers at Clint. "Do you have any idea, Barton, how much one of those fuckers is worth?"

Clint shrugs. He really, really doesn't give a shit. Not normally – hell, how much do Fury's toys cost the taxpayers? – but especially not today. All he wants is to do is get off the helicarrier and onto that plane to Lijiang, where he and Natasha have booked a few days off the grid to level out.

"I dunno. About as much as a little kid? Maybe a bit less? Take it out of my salary if you must."

Hill, who hasn't spoken until now, gives Clint a long, hard stare before turning to the Director.

"That won't be necessary. Sir, I've already written it up as a mission expense, together with the helicopter. Three replacements have been ordered."

The briefing over, Hill grabs her papers and stalks out. Natasha raises one of her patented _what the fuck?_ eyebrows at Clint, who looks as if he may just have witnessed the second coming.

He turns to Coulson.

"Speaking of replacements, Phil. You know where to buy that Nespresso stuff, don't you? I need to stock up."

* * *

END NOTE:

There's a little clip on one of the monitors on the helicarrier, seen when team members first arrive there, that shows Clint and Natasha fighting back to back in what's obviously a war zone. I used to think that might have been Budapest, but when you freeze frame the shot on DVD, it actually reads _Operation Abidjan._ Being generally oblivious I only found this out _after_ mentioning Abidjan in my other story, "Going to Ground", and _after_ I started writing this chapter. Talk about serendipity!

_And a note on links with real life: _In 2010, the then-President of Côte d'Ivoire, Laurent Gbagbo, refused to relinquish power to his elected successor, Alassane Outtara. A civil war followed that lasted well into the next year, resulting in over 2,000 deaths and the displacement of thousands more. That said, everything in this chapter is utterly fictional, with the exception of Médecins Sans Frontières, an organization I hold in the highest regard. A percentage of my frequent flyer points goes to them every time I step on a plane.


	4. New York II

_IV_

_New York II_

Clint rappels down from the catwalk – his 'nest,' as Selvig calls it - and lands soft-footed in front of Fury.

The Director is not in a good mood. There are sirens blaring and people running every which way, Hill's in a snit over his priorities, and nobody has any fucking answers for him. Shit is going down all around him, _big_ shit, and it's not even the right colour.

The hangar is bathed in a blue, pulsing light.

"I gave you this detail so you could keep an eye on things," Fury snarls at Clint by way of greeting. He's pissed, and someone's got to know it.

The archer doesn't skip a beat as he falls into step with his boss.

"I see better from a distance," he informs Fury, equally curtly.

Some things Clint is prepared to take crap over and some he's not, and just how he does a job that's been delegated to him is not on the list. _Whether_ it's done properly, yeah, fair enough. _How_ he gets it done – hell, no. There are no Standard Operating Procedures for what they've got here, and Clint feels perfectly entitled to make some up.

Fury put him in charge of security for what he claimed was the most sensitive project in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s history – almost a thousand people and fifteen acres of highly-classified real estate - and Clint's done it all, assessed, planned, executed, detailed, delegated. Hell, he's thisclose to becoming _management, _for fuck's sake, something he's so far always managed to avoid. And there's one thing he knows for sure: when it comes to a crisis, you need the big picture, and with the tesseract acting up and that evac chaos all around, there's no better line of sight than from sixty feet up. But the boss insists he come done, and so he does.

Clint, frankly, isn't in a much better mood than Fury. He doesn't tolerate the unexplained very well, and New Mexico has been one endless fucking series of _unexplained_, starting with that over-decorated hammer and its very peculiar owner.

He's still chewing over why he felt kind of relieved that he didn't have to take that guy … _Thor_? … out. He would've, of course – the guy was a menace, chopping through agents like a field of daisies, and Clint had a nice, clean shot – but there was something about him … Fellow lost soul, warrior in need of a cause? Someone to have a beer with some night, find out what makes him tick. _Yeah, right. As if._

At the top of Clint's current list of grievances, though, is the fact that he hasn't seen his partner for weeks, and he lays the blame for that squarely at Fury's feet. First Natasha's been made to baby-sit Tony Fucking Stark, watching Iron Man's personal meltdown up close and personal, and right after that Fury sent her off on some solo recon mission to hobnob with the Russian Mafia.

So much for the most successful partnership in the agency, not to mention that whole Avengers Initiative thing. Somebody (Hill?) will end up deep-throating one of Clint's arrows, if splitting up Delta Team becomes a permanent feature of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s SOPs.

All this to say, while the Hawk's brain might acknowledge that he should be flattered by the high profile of his current assignment, at this very moment his gut wants nothing so much as his bow, and he sure as hell doesn't need Fury to bring him to ground.

Besides, Clint has the unsettling feeling that all those highly trained scientists and all their bespectacled assistants don't have a clue what they're doing. Ph-fucking-Ds, without a clear line of sight between them, except maybe Selvig. They measure stuff and graph things and go apeshit over a sudden pulse of energy, but they have no idea what they're looking at, or what it might mean.

And none of them, not one, sees the obvious threat that's inherent intheir so-called _door into space, _and why you need to hold the high ground.

"Doors open from both sides."

…..

The ghostly figure is bathed in the blue light of the tesseract and the tendrils of light still snaking around the room. Funky coat, long, unwashed hair, mocking eyes and a smile that practically screams 'unhinged'. The guy's bizarre fashion sense means that the glowing spear is the only weapon he's got easy access to, and so Clint's focus narrows to a single point of light.

He assumes that the spear thing is a side arm and not an elaborate flashlight - the colour's the same as the tesseract that spat the guy out in the first place, and that can't be good. Clint's instincts scream at him to take the guy out, _now, _but Fury seems intent on talking to him first. Always the spy first, never the soldier.

"_I am Loki, of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose." _

Even his prose sounds abnormal. Clint flexes his fingers, loosens his stance, ready to let fly at the slightest twitch.

And then.

The scepter comes to light and unleashes balls of unknown and deadly energy, its target - Nick Fury.

It takes all of Clint's hard-wired reaction speed and coiled strength to hurl himself at Fury, straight as an arrow, and to knock him aside, out of the line of fire. More blue ball lightning follows and agents, scientists and security personnel are hurled to the ground indiscriminately; none rise.

Rolling and picking himself up off the floor, Clint shakes off the concussive effect of the force unleashed by that … that _thing_ and pulls out his gun in one smooth, practiced motion.

And freezes.

"_You have heart_."

That smile … That voice … Sweet and sensuous, dripping into his mind like the juice of an overripe, decaying piece of fruit … wine-rich and so … heady …

It fills his mind and he (who?) can't think … can't breathe … can't move … can't … All he can feel is the light draining from his eyes and his world and then there is nothing, a space between worlds … and … he … ceases.

The light returns, ice-blue, true and clear, rimed with purpose, shining the path to devotion and service … and _yes._

He is the forge and the sword, the arrow and the quiver – for truth and for glory.

_His_ truth, _His_ glory.

And yes.

_Yes._

…_.._

Barton stands like a statue, his gun re-holstered. Observing. It's what he knows best - until he sees, until he _does_.

He sees now, so clearly.

"Sir, Director Fury is stalling. He means to bury us."

"_So stop him." _The command in his head is sharp and clear and leaves no room for questions. The gun is in his hand, he twists, he fires.

Fury is down, not out. No matter. The box is Barton's. March.

"We need that vehicle."

Hill, Maria, S.H.I.E.L.D. _Obstacle - eliminate_.Twist, turn, fire.

Somehow, she dodges.

_Must do better. Can do better. Will do better._

The world narrows to a wheel and a road and a goal and the only way out and to glory is through cars and guns and falling rocks. A chopper, a ball of fire, and they're gone, hidden by the darkness of a desert night and the groans of the wounded earth.

…..

Three, four days later – who measures time in the service of truth? – and the battle plans are clear. The song in Barton's head is strong. He_ wants_ to please, _needs_ to erase the small failures of New Mexico. All his mind holds now is purity of purpose and the joy of service.

Barton's voice is a flat monotone, as grey as his face and as shadowed as those sleepless, frost-rimed eyes, when he warns of Fury's _Avengers_, that team – so far a danger more to themselves than to others, but if brought on track … a threat.

"_I want to know everything you can tell me about this team of his."_

Ironman, a law unto himself. Unpredictable, yes. Uncontrollable, yes. But so, so smart and so, so dangerous.

Captain America, the super soldier. Determined enough to die; successful enough to cheat time and death to fight again.

Thor … No need to explain. Spitting, venomous hatred sparks into the minion's mind at the name; the word _brother _is a curse.

Banner. The brilliant scientist, the live wire, the force of nature, the wild card, the monster.

"_Ah, yes. The monster_."

Hawkeye, the archer. Vanquished already, not a threat anymore, an ally now. More than an ally. The strategist, the general of Loki's army.

That leaves …

Black Widow. (_Natasha…) _A flash, a flicker in his mind, an echo, of … what?

_No, not … that. Not there. Don't …_

The god is intrigued.

"_Oh yes, Agent Barton. Oh yes. Yes ... Her, too. Tell me._"

Loki watches his pale minion's eyes flicker; the god's tongue comes out and he licks his lips - hungrily, lasciviously, in anticipation of a treat. This will be good … an unsought delicacy in the nourishing feast that is Barton's mind. An _amuse gueule_, to be cherished - later.

"Tell me _everything, _Agent Barton_._"

A quick turn of the screw, and the blue is steady again in Barton's eyes, resistance gone, replaced with purpose.

Once the words flow they're a torrent, cutting through jagged thoughts:

_First they took her body, then they took her soul … piece by piece they unmade her, through fire and blood and pain to stone ... from Red to Black … but now she is whole, mostly whole, and she fears the touch of my hands for reasons far different …_

"_More. Tell me more." _

The God's eyes sparkle as he starts to pluck on the strands of darkness and light, the tendrils of trust (and nets of fear) that weave around the Black Widow and Agent Barton; all the things that they are and fear to become - he feeds off it all, relishes the unexpected delights, so textured and sweet in one so austere.

Something else stirs in the God's own mind, though, at the touch of those thoughts, seeing those things that are fragile and tentative and nothing that he has ever known, nothing that has ever been his. Loki blinks back a sudden rage.

Yes, Agent Barton has heart. And the God of Thieves, the God of Lies, will know just what to do with that _heart _when the time comes. _And oh, it will be fun._

"_Enough."_

Pleasure's over. Time for business, time to plan. Two plans: the gate and the team. Parallel tracks, converging on glory.

Barton rattles off the helicarrier's vulnerabilities like a shopping list: Four engines, three essential. Operating systems both sophisticated and fragile. Fury's hubris, bringing in the monster. What goes up must come down.

And this, an old truth drawn from ancient battles:

_The easiest way to defeat an enemy is to give him something he wants._

Yes, Agent Barton is a man of clear objectives, a gifted strategist, a leader; Loki has chosen well.

But more than that, the snap of the bow in the killer's hand heralds resolve and action, released from the cowardice of conscience. Agent Barton - free to be what he was meant to be, should be grateful.

He is:

"I need a distraction. And an eyeball."

The opening gambit is easy. Barton is an arrow nocked, ready to fly. Guards drop silently into the Stuttgart night, sprouting feathered projectiles like the fingers of the god himself, mocking their insignificance as they fall.

Heinrich Schäfer is an opera fan, and the key to a door Barton needs to open. The good German surrenders hiseyeball with minimum fuss, twitching on the altar of the Glory To Come. Loki doesn't mind at all doing his minion's bidding in this; he relishes the feeling of that little life ebbing away under the sceptre.

Later, as the god walks the halls of the helicarrier in chains, he does so with a smile of triumph, thinking of the plan wrought by that talented merchant of death, who will help bring his brother to heel.

_Beware of the Greeks, bearing gifts. _

_Beware of the God, being one._

…..

The cell is bright, made of crystal; a putative tomb, now a showcase for greatness.

Through the eyes of his master, Barton sees the Black Widow; his lust briefly stirs. She is a prize worth taking, worthy of a god. Or of his general. Loki makes certain he sees, and hears. And feels.

_Yes._

"I won't touch Barton. Not until I make him kill you - slowly, intimately, in every way he knows you fear…"

_Yes._

"And when he wakes, he'll have just enough time to see the work he's done, and when he screams, I'll break his skull."

_Soon._

…_.._

It is the shot of a lifetime, from the open hold of one aircraft in flight, across the buffeting winds of the thinnest of atmospheres, into the distant wing of another. As always, the archer looks to the target, not to the arrow's flight, the sudden curve, the turn it must take. All he needs is a clear line of sight.

He lets go.

Mathematics is truth and trajectories don't lie; the killer's skill lies in understanding, in making the laws and forces of physics perform to his will. The rest is acceptance. His crystal blue eyes do not follow the arrow to its goal once he has set it on its path, though. He knows where it will end.

In his fortress of glass the God knows, too. The first shot of the war has been fired.

Loki smiles.

…..

The fighting still rages throughout the carrier, although the stuttering of the wounded engine is no longer the sound of victory, but the threat of resurgence. The archer's feet pound the metal grate of the catwalk with precision and speed, narrowing the distance to the One he serves. His head is bent in silent focus.

_Must reach Loki. Must not fail._

He is not meant to hear the footfall behind him, but he does, he always does. Barton turns, knowing who and what he will find, and sudden joy swells his heart.

_She. The one Loki wants him to take, for His pleasure._

It starts as a dance. Back and forth, evenly matched. The firepower of her Widow's bite against the hiss of his arrows: agile bodies swaying in lethal winds.

Watching the spectacle from his blue-lit box, Loki cackles his delight.

The bow becomes a snare – the archer caresses that white throat with it, drawing the Widow in for that final kiss. A sharp twist to snap her neck but no … too soon. The God shrieks in protest - "_too soon!"_ - and Barton lets go, the weapon useless now.

"_Quiet her,"_ the voice in his head urges, its tones thick with desire – desire that floods his senses.

"_Then take your pleasure. Our pleasure. I will be with you, in you …"_

Close. They're too close.

No – just close enough. Time to slow the dance, embrace …

Knives.

_Yes._

A blade to carve Our name into creamy skin.

_Yes._

Red trails, painting Our triumph.

_Yes._

Each blow he lands on her body is a kiss, each kick a primal thrust. Arousal courses through Barton's veins as he fights, spurred on by those whispers in his mind. The world grows dim as his pupils dilate, his blood soars.

_He wants … _

_He needs … _

The crescendo of desire dims his vision, slows his hand. Pain shoots up a twisted arm. His shoulder makes a sickening noise and Loki snarls his contempt at his minion's weakness.

The archer flips the knife to the other hand, his dominant left, and the dance begins again.

_Yes._

She traps his arm once more, this time follows through with her teeth. Part of him relishes the intimacy of this attack, wants to return it – to bite, to mark, to devour.

_Failure is not an option. _

A shrieking hatred suddenly fills his head, although the scream is not for him: "_Brother!" _

A distraction, then - nothing. The connection is broken, the voice gone.

Barton reels and staggers with the sudden silence and the Widow seizes the advantage. He twists, is spun around. His skull cracks against the iron railing and his neck snaps back.

On his knees now, he looks up, seeing as through a stranger's eyes. Certainty shatters into shards of ice, falling, and a near-forgotten question escapes cracked grey lips.

"Tasha?"

Another blow. The blue light fades, and darkness falls.

…..

"Now you sound like yourself again."

Clint would challenge Natasha's statement, except there is something in her voice, a quavering doubt that worries him more than his own condition. (He seems stuck in self-pity mode anyway, not particularly useful.)

"But you don't."

He gives her a lingering look. Why _would_ she want to wade into a war?

Through the lifting fog in his head he remembers the spitting distaste she had for that mission in Abidjan. Clint himself has spent enough time on real battlefields to be, if not at home, then able to see the ebb and flow of war and to find his path through the chaos. He can tune out the noise, ride out the storm. But Natasha prefers subtlety and shadows to the ack-ack-ack of blazing guns; she draws on the silences between words.

He knows, he just _knows_, that she's hiding something much deeper, a war of her own. But now is not the time to press. Who knows what they would find, and whether they can afford the answer, now that their world is hurling towards its end.

He goes to splash cold water in his face and to get ready for … what? When he comes back out, Natasha is no longer alone.

"Can you fly one of those jets?"

Rogers is a man with a purpose, come for what help he can find.

"I can." (_Will you want me to? Would anyone want me to?)_

Rogers holds the archer's eyes for a moment, sees what he needs to see, what he hoped to see. In turn, the Captain gives Clint what he hoped to hear, what he needs to hear.

"You got a suit? Suit up."

_Trust_. A thing that works both ways.

Clint pulls on his gloves, his leathers, his quiver … it feels good, that touch, the familiar smells, the weight on his back. His quiver and glove alight and hum, the connections alive. He should have a headache, but his head is clear – adrenaline is a wonderful thing. The Hawk has never been as ready and as keen for a battle as he is now.

Still, he feels the stares – real or imagined, still as sharp as a hundred blades - scoring his back as he walks with his companions, through the chaos of the hangar and out onto the runway.

_There goes Barton, the traitor, the pawn ..._

Through the doubts and the questions and the anger he is sure must be there, he walks loose and straight, eyes forward, slightly behind Captain America. (That vibranium shield deflects more than missiles.) But there's no time for wallowing; for now, he'll take the patented Romanoff approach to ugly things: mark the ledger, then shut the drawer until the account falls due.

He can do this. He _has_ to do this. Because … _Phil._

Coulson and those goddamn dreams of his. Time to make them real.

There's a job to be done and a city to be saved and by all the furies on his tail, Clint Barton will do his bit. (And maybe he'll even get in that one lucky shot, the one he told Natasha he wanted, the one that might put a bandaid on his soul.) The other crap can wait tomorrow – it's not like it'll go away anytime soon.

If there _is_ a from New York is grim. No one knows where Thor and Banner are; Iron Man is out there pretty much on his own, battling aliens spawned by a hole in the sky, a grey, hungry army.

Clint doesn't wait for the tower to clear the Quinjet for takeoff; there's no one in the sky here. Minutes later, he ekes an unorthodox landing out of a broken bird while the Captain hangs onto the cargo rail. Another S.H.I.E.L.D. plane down; Fury will be pissed. At least this one went in a good cause.

Rogers takes command easily and naturally, and the team that should never have been starts to click. Clint's hands and thoughts are his own - whether he fights back to back with his partner, pulls civilians from a bus, drills arrows into alien throats or calls the shots from up high. ("_Legolas_? _Watch your mouth, Tin Man_ …").

Whatever the hell this is, however they managed to get to this place - it works.

And when Natasha brings him That Shot, Clint's smile reaches his eyes for the first time since New Mexico and he touches his bow string with his lips before he lets go. Watching that sonofabitch get blown onto Stark's balcony, to become a rag doll for an enthusiastic Hulk – well, it's as good as if that arrow had lodged directly in the little shit's eye.

The battle continues. The Council makes its call and Fury and the Avengers make their response – through fire and smoke and until the gates of hell are forced shut while the city yet stands.

And then it's over, and in the dusty ruins of what was once Tony Stark's living room, Clint's arrow points once more at the man who would be God.

…..

It's nighttime and Clint's mouth tastes of garlic (next time, he'll suggest Chinese). Exhaustion doesn't begin to cover how he feels, and his head rings with things physical and … not. A toothbrush would be nice.

Unsurprisingly, S.H.I.E.L.D. has called in its assets for the night. Not for a debrief, thank god; there'll be time for that later, even Fury gets that. Besides, most of the shit that went down has been caught on camera or on people's cell phones. The internet is alive with footage of creepy aliens and a flying Thor and Bruce Banner in full Hulk mode, so what the hell could they possibly add to that?

No, ostensibly the recall of Agents Barton and Romanoff to home base is for strictly humanitarian reasons. Medical check-ups, to be precise, although there's probably a certain amount of enlightened self-interest involved, with Fury making sure that his prime assets don't die from alien hairballs before they can be redeployed.

They catch a transport together from Stark's helipad - Clint, Natasha, Rogers and Banner. (Thor just wants to read Loki the riot act in private someplace, and Stark and his girlfriend seem to have … plans for the night.) Unlike their merely human teammates, the two super hero types don't need medical attention - but they _do_ need a bed, and even in its messed up state, the helicarrier beats having to find an intact hotel in downtown Manhattan. (Clint's place on Lex doesn't have any windows right now.)

There's debris all over the place on the helipad, but the chopper manages to find a landing spot somehow. Clint nods goodbye to Stark, who winks at Natasha and says something about "Natalie" that makes Pepper roll her eyes. She seems sharp and nice, like Tasha says - probably what Stark needs to deflate his ego on occasion, and good luck to her with that.

As soon as the chopper is in the air Natasha informs everyone who will listen that she just wants to crash, not to see any medics, and how saving the world ought to get you a bye from this S.H.I.E.L.D. post-mission protocol crap. But fact is, she has a swollen ankle from when the Hulk dropped bits of the ship on her, not to mention major contusions where he threw her into a wall; it's amazing she was able to fight the way she did. So Clint just glares at her, and luckily she's just too tired to argue seriously and eventually heaves a resigned sigh.

Clint himself is only too aware that he needs to have his head examined, among other things. He doesn't think there's any physical evidence of Loki left – there probably wouldn't have been anything to see even while his eyes were still glass - but he's not stupid, and he knows that he'll likely be scrutinized for weeks to come. Might as well get on the record with an early brain scan, for the inevitable psych evals and hearings.

Besides, his skull _does_ hurt like stink from Tasha's wallops, as does his back where he landed on his quiver after that twelve-story drop. Not to mention he's got two or three chandeliers' worth of glass embedded in his arms, legs and back. So yeah, medical attention sounds pretty good.

Most importantly, getting prodded by medics means he won't have to go to sleep. And won't have to hear that voice – the voice that continues to echo whenever silence falls …

The helicarrier is still smoking in places and the mess is … well, let's just say Fury must be seriously pissed. He likes things neat, does the Director. Bruce and Steve peel off to their quarters right away, with a tired wave. Natasha wants to go ahead to medical; getting her ankle strapped should only take a few minutes and then she, too, can go to sleep. They both know that leveling out will be a doozy this time, so there's no point trying to talk now. (Tomorrow. They'll try and get away for a bit tomorrow - if S.H.I.E.L.D. will let him go, after all he's done.)

Clint knows that he'll be a heck of a lot longer, and since he has no interest in sleep anyway, he makes a detour via the coffee room. It's a bit of a mess, although not too bad, all things considered. But there's something Clint notices right away: his "Archers Do It With A Recurve" mug is on the floor, in four or five pieces.

Maybe it fell out of a cupboard during the Hulk's rampage, or when his own explosive arrow shook the carrier. Or maybe someone smashed in disgust, to make a point about all the people who died on this bloody barge today, and who was to blame for that.

He's not sure whether he hopes it's the former, or is content for it to be the latter. After all, Coulson …

However he feels about it, Clint's back hurts too much now to pick up the pieces – that's what he tells himself, anyway - so he just kicks them aside and takes a paper cup. There's a pot of something sludgy and vile-smelling on the go (probably been on the burner for hours, Juan Valdez now turned Exxon Valdez) but all he wants is the caffeine hit, so he takes it anyway.

As he makes his way onward to the medical bay, Clint is struck by two things. First is the number of people who are still awake, a lot more than would normally be around during night shift. After the shit day it's been, you'd think Fury would tell people to go and grab some shuteye?

But the second thing is, most of them are clustered around monitors, watching what looks like looped re-runs of coverage of the battle for Manhattan. Like they can't get enough of it – talking and pointing, almost like it's something they want to feel part of, something they don't really want to end.

Clint shakes his head. Here they are, they've had a battle right where they stand – there's still glass and metal bits and blood everywhere (he tries not to think about the blood, but fails), and they're watching _that_? Christ. He shrugs it off and keeps walking, hoping that no one will notice him. Hell, he has absolutely no idea how people will react to his return, so for now he rather they didn't. The mug thing sure gave him pause.

And then it happens, he hears someone stage-whisper: "Hey look, there's Hawkeye!" Another voice says something about "… Avengers …" and then a dozen heads turn in his direction. Clint pretends he doesn't hear, doesn't want to figure out whether it's awe or anger he hears, it's all the same.

He buries his face in the disgusting smell of stale coffee and heads down the corridor to medical.

…..

Two hours, one major debriding ordeal and a side trip to his room for a shower later (being Loki's hand puppet didn't leave much time for things like sleep, food _or_ personal hygiene), Clint sits on a narrow bench in radiology in clean sweats, waiting for a CT-Scan and an MRI. His back and head are resting against the wall, one leg is pulled up and the other - the one they took the most glass out of, the one he'd had to put on Tasha's chair at that diner - dangles loosely down over the side. His eyes are half-closed but that's because he hates the neon light, not because he's trying to sleep.

He's got his iPod buds in, listening to Springsteen in an attempt to stay awake and drown out certain … echoes. Ironically, The Boss has just gotten to the bit about "no retreat, baby, no surrender," when Clint feels vibrations on the metal floor. Not one of the doctors. Natasha? No. Heels. Boot heels. Clicking on the floor, a stride designed to convince.

Hill.

_Shit. _Just what he end to a perfect day.

Clint opens his eyes without moving his head, knowing by her trajectory that she will stop right in front of him. Maria Hill is nothing if not direct, a quality he's come to appreciate over the years even if her brand of directness usually pisses him off. At least you're never in any doubt where you stand with the good Deputy.

Now, the last time he and Hill shared space, he emptied the magazine of his gun in her direction, rammed the car she was driving into a tunnel wall and left her behind in the wreck, to be buried alive in an implosion that he himself had helped S.H.I.E.L.D. design and rig up. And that was _before _he did his best to blow the ship they're now all on out of the sky. So, for once he couldn't really blame her if she was pissed off at him.

He pulls out his ear buds and steels himself for a lecture of epic proportions, but her first words make him blink back his surprise.

"How are you feeling, Agent Barton?"

_Agent_ Barton. Making a point, she is. Which one though?

"Deputy Director," he replies without answering her question, because that would either take way too long, or be a lie. But then, because he kind of owes her … something … he adds, "Sorry."

"For what?"

Of course, she'd have to ask. Wouldn't be Hill, if she didn't want chapter and verse.

_Everything?_

"New Mexico. You know, trying to kill you and stuff."

"You missed," she states matter-of-factly, a curious look in her eyes. And then, "You _never_ miss."

That's true, and he remembers a rather pointed discussion he'd had with Loki about that. If you can call it a discussion, the guy being inside his head at the time even if actual words were exchanged.

"Yeah, well. The novelty of possession hadn't worn off yet. He got better later, I guess."

He looks at her, trying to gauge her reaction, wondering what she's after, whether she even knows herself. Maybe she doesn't; she's uncharacteristically silent, looking him over pretty thoroughly. She even wrinkles her nose at the smell of that disgusting coffee he's been carrying around, but not been able to bring himself to finish.

Finally, she speaks again, her voice a question even if her words aren't.

"According to the reports, you made the calls on rescuing all those civilians, Barton. The ones in the bus, the ones in the library."

"Yeah. Yeah, guess I did. Usually do." _Of course. What would you have done?_

"It must have been hard for you."

_What – saving civilians?_

Hill must have noticed the puzzled look on his face, because she elaborates.

"Having to do what you're told. Not being able to say 'no' when Loki made you do things you … normally wouldn't. Wouldn't _want_ to do."

Clint almost snorts. Hill always was good at stating the obvious (eventually).

"Didn't even occur to me to say no. Comes with the territory of being possessed, or whatever he did. I embraced my orders with … the _utmost enthusiasm_. Didn't have to think about it."

That last bit he snarls out with a mixture of bitterness and self-loathing that he doesn't bother – can't – hide, even from Hill. Her eyebrows twitch slightly in response.

"But was it hard? Can't say it was. Too fucking easy it was, following orders. Way too easy."

And there's the truth, he knows – what he hasn't figured out, is whether he _made_ it easy, or was _made to want _it to be so easy. But he doesn't need to tell her that, and she has no right to hear it. That's for psych evals to drag out, and for him to chew on for the next decade or so.

Hill spends a few seconds staring at him like he's something from a zoo, but then she surprises him again.

"And you're _not_ easy. You're many things, Barton, but you're never _easy. _It's what makes you such a pain to deal with."

He's not sure how to take that one, but it doesn't _sound_ like a reprimand – at least no less than it could be considered a compliment. She hesitates a split second, almost as if she wants to add something else. But what comes out is, "I'm sorry too."

Clint's head flies up. The last thing he expects, or needs, at this point is pity, but before he can spit that out she raises her hand to stop him. She knows him that well, at least.

"I told the Council that you had been compromised, Agent Barton. It's protocol, I had … no choice. Director Fury was angry about it, and now … I think he was right. What you did with ..._ for_ Loki, that wasn't _you._ It wasn't you at all. It couldn't have been, and I understand that now."

She turns to leave; they've never been the greatest at conversing, and he supposes that her last comment is as much of an admission that she fucked something up as he's ever likely to get.

"Thanks," he says, because it seems kind of appropriate. Obviously so does Hill, because she gives one of her pinched little smiles. But then she stops in her tracks and turns back.

"You heard about Agent Coulson, I assume?" she says, and every little bit of gratitude he might have felt threatens to evaporate on the spot, until she tells him the thing that he didn't know. The thing Phil did for them, for the Avengers, before he died – telling Fury to use him as the push they needed to come together as a team. And what Fury did with that, in his own inimitable fashion. Phil might actually have approved.

Why she tells him all this Clint has no idea, except maybe to wipe out some of the red, as Tasha would call it. _His _red, with Phil. It won't work, of course, it'll never work, but he appreciates the thought. He nods – there really isn't much to say – and winces, because that makes his head hurt. One of the doctors bustles in at this point and Hill finally leaves.

When Clint comes out of the MRI cylinder - forty-five minutes of hammering, clanking sound effects that do absolutely nothing for his headache, even if the procedure conclusively confirms that there's no Asgardian parasite lurking in his frontal lobes – there's someone else in the room.

Fury.

And he's holding a mug. _Clint's_ mug, which appears to have fresh coffee in it, steaming hot. Already the room is filled with one of Clint's Top Three All-Time Favorite Smells (number two is a forest after rain; the third involves his partner, so that's not one he ever examines too closely).

Having brought the coffee this far, Fury is obviously not into taking it any further and sets it down on the bench, with that look of distaste he does so well.

"Hill asked me to bring this, says it's a _Dark Roasted Colombian_. Apparently it's your favourite. And she say to tell you that whoever fixed this … this _thing_ used non-toxic super glue, in case you were wondering."

With an extra lacing of acid, Fury adds, "And it's supposedly dishwasher proof."

He glares at Clint with his one eye as the archer steps forward to claim his mug, and moves on as if the whole scene never happened.

"I suppose you and Romanoff are taking off tomorrow, to do that … that _thing_ you do? That Coulson told me about?"

Clint winces a little at the name, and at the thought; spending time with Natasha to level out will be something of a mixed blessing this time around, but …

"Yeah. Guess so. We'll both need some time. If I'm allowed to leave base?"

Fury knows what he's asking, of course, and just nods.

"You have an appointment in Central Park first, though." he says. "What I came to tell you, before Hill turned me into your butler. Thor's taking Loki back to Asgard. Thought you'd like to be there."

"Hell, yeah. You know it."

And then the Director is gone too, and Clint is left alone to wait for the next round of tests.

He traces the seams where his 'Archers Do It With A Recurve' cup has been meticulously glued back together. Whoever did it made an effort to wipe off the excess glue, but there are slight ridges there; no doubt they'll eventually get scoured off in the dishwasher.

Clint closes his eyes and takes a sip of his coffee. It's black and strong, the way he likes it. For a moment he considers whether he should add some milk, what with the shawarma churning in his gut, but ultimately decides against it.

It's good to have the choice, though.


End file.
